Singaporean company now denies supplying BTI to Chinese firm

Dhaka, Bangladesh (newagebd.net) — August 21, 2023 — Singapore-based Best Chemical Co (S) Pte Ltd said that it did not supply bacterial larvicide, Bacillus Thuringiensis Israelensis, to any Chinese company, nor any other company in the world.

‘We did not supply any BTI to any China company. We did not supply five tonnes of BTI to anyone in this world,’ said Johnny Wong, managing director at Best Chemical Co (S) Pte Ltd, better known as Best Chemical, in response to an email from New Age on Sunday.

On August 7, Dhaka North City Corporation started using the larvicide BTI imported by Bangladeshi contactor Marshal Agrovet Chemical Industries Ltd to enhance the anti-mosquito drive during the dengue surge.

The supplier in the packet of the BTI mentioned that the BTI was imported from the Singapore based company and they introduced one Li Qiang as an export manager of Best Chemical and a BTI expert.

The Singapore based BTI producers, however, informed that they did not supply any BTI to any Bangladeshi firm and the BTI being used by the DNCC was not their product.

They also threatened to take action against the scam.

In the meantime, media reported that the BTI was imported from a Chinese company, Shandong Ganon Agrochemical Co Lt, violating the tender condition.

The DNCC in its tender, asked the supplier to provide BTI from specific countries—the UK, the USA, Singapore, India, Malaysia.

The corporation also asked the contractor not to import the BTI from China.

Amid the fraudulent, the DNCC sought clarification from the Marshal Agrovet.

Later, the importer informed the DNCC on Thursday that they had imported five tonnes of the BTI from Best Chemical through a Chinese firm.

The Best Chemical, however, made it clear that they did not supply five tonnes of BTI to any country in the world.

In the meantime, the DNCC banned the Marshal as their supplier and stopped using the BTI while the city faced dengue surge.

DNCC chief executive officer Md Selim Reza said that they had also formed a probe committee to investigate the issue.

On April 11, the DNCC invited tenders to buy BTI.

Marshal Agrovet won the tender, bidding the lowest Tk 1,69,20,000 for five tonnes of BTI, with Tk 3,385.20 costing per kilogramme.

On July 26, Marchal released the imported BTI from the Chattogram Customs house showing the product import price $48,500.