Ottawa says the government-backed agreement will deepen a long-standing relationship and help diversify exports at a time of global uncertainty
The Canadian government announced a new potash supply agreement with Bangladesh on September 10, adding another chapter to a trading relationship that has quietly moved millions of tons of fertilizer across the Pacific over the past dozen years.
Maninder Sidhu, the minister of international trade, said the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a federal agency, had signed a government-to-government contract with the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, known as BADC, for the supply of Canadian potash from Canpotex, the export marketing company that sells the product of Saskatchewan’s potash producers overseas.
The announcement did not specify the volume or the value of the new contract. Global Affairs Canada, which issued the announcement, described the deal as a way to “diversify Canada’s trade, secure long-term demand for Canadian potash and support Bangladesh’s food security”.
How the arrangement works
The agreement relies on a structure that is less common in commodity markets than the standard spot sale. Under what the Canadian Commercial Corporation calls its government-to-government contracting model, the agency acts as the prime contractor, signing directly with a foreign government buyer and then arranging for a Canadian company to deliver the goods.
For buyers like Bangladesh, where a state corporation procures fertilizer for its farmers, the arrangement offers a government-backed guarantee of supply. For sellers, it offers something equally valuable: a predictable customer.
Robert Kwon, the corporation’s president and chief executive, framed the model as a response to a turbulent moment.
“In an increasingly uncertain global landscape,” said Kwon, direct, government-backed agreements create “stable, predictable supply arrangements” that benefit both exporters and their government buyers.
A decade of deliveries
The new contract is not the first. According to the government, the Canadian Commercial Corporation has facilitated 12 contracts between Canpotex and BADC since 2014, counting this one, resulting in the delivery of more than 3.5 million metric tons of potash to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is a densely populated, largely agrarian country that depends heavily on imported fertilizer, and potash is among the nutrients its farmers need to sustain crop yields. Canada, for its part, is the world’s largest potash producer, with most of its output coming from Saskatchewan.
The wider trade relationship has grown considerably. Bilateral merchandise trade between the two countries rose from $600.5 million in 2004 to $4.1 billion in 2025, the government said. Sidhu said Canadian exports to Bangladesh grew by more than 25 per cent in the past year, though the announcement did not specify whether that figure referred to potash or to trade more broadly.
Diversification as a goal
The deal arrives as Ottawa has made trade diversification a central theme, seeking to reduce Canada’s reliance on any single export market. The United States remains by far the largest buyer of Canadian potash, and deals with customers in Asia are one way of broadening the base.
Sidhu said the agreement “supports good-paying jobs for Canadian workers” and “reinforces Canada’s position as a reliable trading partner”.
The numbers behind Canada’s fertilizer industry give the government reason for confidence. Canadian potash exports grew 13.2 per cent from 2024 to 2025, reaching $9 billion, according to the government. Canada’s overall fertilizer exports also grew 13.2 per cent last year, to $9 billion, the announcement said, a figure that appears to reflect potash’s dominance within the category.
The industry’s view
Gordon McKenzie, Canpotex’s president and chief executive, called the contract “a strong example of how reliable access to Canadian potash can support food security”. He said his company was proud to continue working with the Canadian Commercial Corporation and BADC to deliver potash “with the consistency and reliability that farmers depend on”.
McKenzie also used the occasion to make a pitch about infrastructure. Partnerships like this one, he said, “underscore the importance of resilient infrastructure, trade corridors, and supply chains” that link Canadian resources with overseas customers. Potash from the Prairies must travel by rail to ports on the West Coast before being shipped across the Pacific, and the industry has long lobbied for investment in those corridors.
What is not known
The announcement leaves several questions unanswered. It did not disclose the quantity of potash to be supplied, the price, the length of the contract, or the delivery schedule. Nor did it say how the terms compare with earlier agreements between the two sides.
Still, the broad outline is clear. A relationship that began as a series of individual contracts has become something closer to a standing arrangement, backed by two governments and a marketing company that sells for Canada’s major producers. For Bangladesh’s farmers, that means a steady source of a vital input. For Canada, it means a dependable customer in a world where trade relationships have grown less so.
Note: This article is based on a government press release. The claims, figures and quotations in it are those of the Canadian government and the organizations named and have not been independently verified.
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