9 - Competition Concerns in Fertilizer Import-Dependent Countries like India and China

Summary

With the world population rapidly increasing, achieving food security has been a recurring global challenge. Consequently, dependence on agricultural inputs such as fertilisers has continued to grow. The dependency on inorganic fertilizers is especially acute for developing countries. Paradoxically, the major developing economies that need fertilizers to meet their ever-increasing food production requirements are not self-sufficient in the fertilizer sector. In this realm, Potash is a typical case in point. Production and supply of potash has historically been controlled by international export cartels that consist of a limited number of firms. Not very recently, one of the major export cartels underwent further concentration when the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan merged with Agrium Inc. to form the largest crop nutrient producer in the world - Nutrien. This Chapter discusses the merger and the resultant competition concerns from the perspective of two major import-dependent economies i.e. China and India. It also delineates some limitations of the merger reviews conducted by the respective competition authorities. The objective therein is to address the limitations of the standard ex-post competition analysis and to highlight the political economy issues that affect the state of competition and consumer welfare in markets that are subject to international cartels.