plate 368

Africa tops urea supply in 12 countries, up from six

Countries whose top supplier of urea fertiliser is Egypt, Algeria or Nigeria, of 79 importers, by value, 2015–17 vs 2023–25.

Africa's century
  1. 1. By 2100, more than 1 in 3 people will be African
  2. 2. Nearly half the world's under-25s will be African by 2100
  3. 3. DR Congo is projected to outgrow the US by 2100
  4. 4. Kinshasa will soon be bigger than Paris and London combined
  5. 5. Two-thirds of the world's mobile money moves in Africa
  6. 6. Volcanic heat makes nearly 45% of the power Kenya generates
  7. 7. Africa's solar imports more than doubled since early 2024
  8. 8. DR Congo mines three-quarters of the world's cobalt
  9. 9. Most people in Africa are still offline
  10. 10. Africa formally recycles less than 1% of its e-waste
  11. 11. Ethiopia added over a third of Africa's new renewable power
  12. 12. Nigeria's cities now hold more people than Japan's
  13. 13. Sudan now has the world's most people displaced at home
  14. 14. Nigeria now has almost 25 million more people than Brazil
  15. 15. Six of the ten fastest-growing big cities are African
  16. 16. Africa now has more hungry people than Asia
  17. 17. Six in ten child deaths now happen in sub-Saharan Africa
  18. 18. Rwanda spread electricity faster than any country since 2014
  19. 19. Nigeria now eats more rice than Japan
  20. 20. More sub-Saharan Africans now have mobile money than bank accounts
  21. 21. Sub-Saharan Africa's cities now hold more people than Latin America's
  22. 22. DR Congo tripled its copper mining in ten years
  23. 23. Nitrogen dioxide over Khartoum fell 39% after war began
  24. 24. Countries mostly without electricity fell from 33 to 15
  25. 25. Seven in ten West African mobile money accounts sit idle
  26. 26. Nigeria became the third-biggest sender of students abroad
  27. 27. Guinea overtook Australia as the world's biggest bauxite miner
  28. 28. DR Congo passed Chile in refined copper
  29. 29. Burkina Faso now sends half its exports to the UAE
  30. 30. Nouakchott's mobile internet sped from Africa's slowest to top 30
  31. 31. Nigeria now imports more solar panels than generators
  32. 32. Zimbabwe climbed to fourth among the world's lithium miners
  33. 33. Services now employ twice as many Ghanaian women as farms
  34. 34. Sub-Saharan Africa doubled its grain, mostly by farming more land
  35. 35. Sub-Saharan Africa added more rural people than the whole world
  36. 36. France fell from first to third among Côte d'Ivoire's suppliers
  37. 37. China's car sales to Ethiopia are now mostly electric
  38. 38. Guinea rose from 17th to second for investment in Africa
  39. 39. Africa now mines three-quarters of the world's manganese
  40. 40. Tanzania rose from no graphite to world's third-biggest miner
  41. 41. DR Congo has more babies each year than the EU
  42. 42. More Malawians go online than have electricity at home
  43. 43. Nigeria is now Brazil's biggest supplier of urea fertiliser
  44. 44. 19 sub-Saharan countries are now mostly urban, up from 7
  45. 45. Sub-Saharan Africa added 13 million births a year since 2000
  46. 46. Sub-Saharan Africa now holds 88% of people without electricity
  47. 47. Malawi's life expectancy rose 21 years, more than anywhere
  48. 48. Ethiopia's wheat harvest nearly doubled, mostly from higher yields
  49. 49. In purchasing power, Egypt overtook Nigeria as Africa's biggest economy
  50. 50. Kenyans abroad send home more than Kenya receives in aid
  51. 51. Africa tops urea supply in 12 countries, up from six
12 of 79

Importing countries whose largest urea supplier was Egypt, Algeria or Nigeria in 2023–25, up from 6 in 2015–17.

8

Of the 12 have Egypt as top supplier; Nigeria leads in Brazil and Argentina, Algeria in Ireland and Uruguay.

28.7%

Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria's share of Brazil's urea imports in 2023–25, up from 6.5% in 2015–17 (see plate 319).

Source: UN Comtrade, imports of urea (HS 310210) by partner, reported by each importer, 2023–25
the numbers & method
Africa tops urea supply in 12 countries, up from six. Source: UN Comtrade, imports of urea (HS 310210) by partner, reported by each importer, 2023–25.
CountryValue (%)
GRC75.0
ITA65.3
IRL62.8
FRA56.6
SEN54.0
ARG52.8
ESP52.7
URY50.7
ROU45.5
PRT42.6
BGR40.5
GBR39.3
BEL32.7
CAN29.5
TUR29.0
BRA28.7
GHA26.9
CIV24.4
SVN24.4
AGO21.0
NLD19.6
USA18.1
COD14.6
MAR13.5
POL13.3
ISR13.0
COL12.3
CHE11.4
FIN10.4
MDA7.9
DEU7.8
ZAF7.5
LTU6.4
MEX5.7
IND5.3
CZE3.7
SVK3.6
KEN3.5
MWI2.6
LKA2.5
BIH2.4
MOZ2.4
HUN2.3
CHL2.2
SRB1.7
CRI1.5
BFA1.3
NIC1.2
ECU0.8
AUT0.5
PRY0.5
PER0.4
DOM0.3
NZL0.2
JPN0.1
AUS0.0
DNK0.0
EST0.0
GTM0.0
GUY0.0
HRV0.0
IDN0.0
KAZ0.0
KGZ0.0
KHM0.0
KOR0.0
LUX0.0
LVA0.0
MMR0.0
MYS0.0
PAK0.0
PAN0.0
PHL0.0
SLV0.0
SWE0.0
THA0.0
TZA0.0
ZMB0.0
ZWE0.0

Claim types Fact

UN Comtrade, HS 310210 (urea, the most traded nitrogen fertiliser), imports as reported by each importing country, US$ (CIF), calendar years, read from the UN Comtrade API via the progrss vault (loaded from comtradeplus.un.org; vault rule GUIDELINES §4.11; source un-comtrade passes value checks, 24 matches, 0 mismatches). Set: the 79 countries that reported urea imports in all six years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2023, 2024 and 2025 and imported more than US$5 million a year on average in both periods. Each country's largest supplier is the partner with the highest summed import value over 2015–17 and over 2023–25 (three-year sums smooth the 2022 price spike, which is left out); progrss calculation. Then (6): France and Spain (Algeria), Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Türkiye (Egypt). Now (12): Egypt leads in France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, Romania and Slovenia; Nigeria in Brazil and Argentina; Algeria in Ireland and Uruguay. Türkiye moved from Egypt to Oman. Previous top suppliers of the new six: Qatar (Brazil), Venezuela (Argentina), Russia (United Kingdom), Ukraine (Romania), Croatia (Slovenia), the United Kingdom (Ireland), Oman (Uruguay). In 2025 alone, African suppliers led in 14 of 127 reporting countries, including Ghana, Angola and Niger. Map colours show Africa's share (Egypt + Algeria + Nigeria) of each country's urea imports in 2023–25. Values, not tonnes; partners are the country of origin as each importer records it. In 2015–17 Russia led Algeria in the United Kingdom, and Ukraine led Egypt in Romania, by under 0.2%. Year by year, African suppliers led in 6–9 of the 79 in 2015–17 and 12–13 in 2023–25; counting Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria as one bloc gives 9 then and 14 now. Only partners in each importer's top 10 in a year are counted, so small shares can read as 0 and Africa's shares are minimums. Context, not a cause claimed: the UK has taxed Russian goods since 2022 and the EU has tariffed Russian fertiliser since July 2025; Russia is still Brazil's second supplier in 2025.

license this plate

what connects to this

034 new routes Egypt is the world's biggest wheat buyer 341 new routes India now imports more cotton than it exports 375 hotter planet Mexico's Caribbean reefs' three worst heat years were 2023–2025