The export of raw jute has plunged in the current fiscal year due to devaluation of currency of neighbouring India, a major raw jute importer from Bangladesh, jute department officials said. They said the drastic fall in the raw jute export would discourage the growers from cultivating more jute and they (the growers) would also be deprived of fair price of their produce.
According to jute department statistics, 2.15 lakh bales of raw jute were exported till December 2, 2013, while 20.55 lakh bales of raw jute were exported in the last fiscal year 2012-13.
In the FY 2011-12 some 22.85 lakh bales of raw jute were exported.
Jute department officials said that total raw jute export in the current fiscal year would drop by more than 50 per cent in the current fiscal year from that in the last fiscal year.
The government has set a target of producing about 95 lakh bales of jute in the current crop year, they said.
‘The government is trying to increase domestic use of jute against the backdrop of the plunge in the export of raw jute by implementing mandatory jute packaging act,’ jute department director Mohammed Kefayet Ullah told New Age on Tuesday.
He said the government was also trying to explore new export destinations for raw jute and jute goods from Bangladesh.
Dubai, which has banned using of polythene bag, would be a source of jute bag export from Bangladesh, he said.
The jute sector of Bangladesh contributes foreign exchange equivalent to Tk 8,000 crore annually to the government exchequer, Kefayet said.
A senior jute department official said that India had stopped importing raw jute from Bangladesh in the current crop year due to its government policy which was discouraging import amid devaluation of its currency.
‘Iran, another raw jute importer, has also reduced buying jute due to financial restriction imposed by the western countries,’ he said.
Pakistan, China, Vietnam and European countries import jute and jute goods from Bangladesh in small-scale, the official said.
In this situation, jute farmers and jute millers demanded that the government should increase local consumption of jute through implementing immediately the jute packaging act.
They also urged the government to ensure fair price of jute to help increase its production in the country.
India started mandatory use of jute since 1987. Though Bangladesh enacted the mandatory jute packaging act in 2010, the law is yet to be implemented, an official of Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation told New Age.
Bangladesh Jute growers’ Samity general secretary Harun-Ur Rashid said,
‘BJMC’s dues to small-scale jute traders and jute farmers are Tk 350 crore in the current year.’
The corporation should pay the dues soon to help save the local jute mills and jute growers.
He urged the government to set the price of jute at Tk 2,200 a mound (40 kilogram) as the production cost has increased.
-With New Age input
