The regulatory duty on cotton import may be restored to prevent the massive import and dumping of cotton and enable farmers to receive a global parity price, a meeting on budget proposals for agriculture in Pakistan recently suggested, while expressing reservations over the fertilizer price hike in the last two years and the profits made by fertilizer firms. The meeting, which discussed minimum support price, access to credit, regulatory duties on import, taxation on agriculture machinery, import duties on fertilizers and pesticides, and allocation for agriculture research, felt the need for a stringent price regulation mechanism to control the price of agricultural inputs, according to Pakistani media reports.
