SEOUL, Nov. 11 (BNA) South Korean Prime Minister Kim Bo-kyeom said Thursday that South Korea will cut tariffs and put emergency controls on the production and supply of urea solution to ease the country’s ongoing supply crisis with materials used to reduce emissions. Diesel vehicles.
Kim revealed the plans during an extraordinary cabinet meeting called to discuss measures to tackle the urea shortage. Yonhap reported that during the meeting, the cabinet was set to approve a government notice allowing authorities to control production, shipments and sales of urea and urea solution.
Under the measure, which will be in effect until the end of this year, sellers must report their imports, sales, prices and stocks of urea and urea solution to the government on a daily basis.
To prevent hoarding, passenger car drivers can buy up to 10 liters from the dealership at a time, and purchases up to 30 liters are allowed for use by trucks, construction machinery and agricultural machinery, according to the Ministry of Industry.
The sale of urea solution is allowed only at gas stations in principle, and its exports are prohibited, except for sellers obtaining prior permission from the authorities for “inevitable reasons”.
The government will reduce tariffs on importing urea and its solution to zero from the current 5-6.5 percent until June 30 next year. The measure will take effect from Friday.
The ministry said any violation of the procedures will be punished with imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of 100 million won ($84,817) according to relevant laws.
The government previously issued emergency controls on the production and provision of specific goods last year when the country faced shortages of face masks following the COVID-19 outbreak.
“As a prime minister who oversees state affairs, I feel very responsible and want to express my regret to people for raising their concerns and inconvenience,” Kim said of criticism of the government’s late response on the supply issue of the urea solution. “It will take some time to normalize supplies. We need the wisdom to endure these difficult times together.”
South Korea has been running short of aqueous urea solution, known as diesel exhaust fluid, and its prices soaring in recent weeks, as China tightened exports of fertilizers and related materials, including urea, in October amid a coal-triggered energy crisis. supply shortage. Coal is the main raw material in the production of urea.
South Korea is highly dependent on China for its urea supplies, with 97.6 percent of its imports coming from China in the first nine months of this year.
The government earlier said it was in talks with about 10 countries, including those in the Middle East, to import 10,000 tons of urea to help ease supply shortages.
The country plans to import 200 tons of urea from Vietnam next week and bring in 27,000 liters of urea solution from Australia this week via military aircraft.
It will also bring 18,700 tons of urea from China soon.
To stabilize the market, the authorities have also begun to crack down on excessive storage and illegal distribution of urea-urea solution.
FKN