4 private-owned jute mills closed down
The country’s jute industries, specially the private sector jute mills, are passing through a crucial juncture mainly due to frequent hartal, blockade and political instability which are seriously affecting productions in mills and factories. According to industry sources, about four private jute mills have already closed down their operations and declared “lay-off” during the first three months (July-September) of current fiscal and many others are running following the same path. Already hit hard by financial crisis and drastic fall in export, the efficiency of the industry has come down substantially in recent days because of the fresh spell of political programme that affects the production seriously, halts transportation of goods and shipments. Finished products, industry sources said, are stockpiled in many of the mills but they failed make any shipment due to the frequent and non- stop strike and blockade programmes.
“The authorities have to open the mills, count salaries for the workers but fail to generate any money,” said a high official of Bangladesh Jute Mills Association (BJMA), the apex body of the country’s private mills. “If the situation continues, many of the mills will fall sick and force to close their operations,” said BJMA secretary A Bakir Khan while talking to The Independent adding that most of the mills under BJMA are on the verge of collapse. Many of the mills are contemplating to cut their productions.
Finding it difficult to cope with the situation, the authorities of Pubali Jute Mills at Ghorashal closed down the mill temporarily just a few days ago. Earlier the Mohshain and Ezaz Jute mills in Khulna closed their mills a few months ago. “Many mills are on their way to close down,” said the BJMA secretary urging the government to provide ‘blocked account’ facilities to the private jute millers against bank loans.
“We are caught in a quagmire as we can neither sell our products nor procure the raw materials as everything were stuck up in the factory because of the stalemate,” said Pubali Jute Mills managing director Kamran T Rahman adding that they could not generate funds required to run the industry. “We have finished products against sale orders but cannot deliver the goods,” said Kamran, also a former chairman of BJMA.
Of the 130 members of BJMA, some 38 big mills contribute about 70 per cent of the production. Among the 38 big mills, eight have already been closed down, three laid off, 15 are occasionally operative and only 12 are in operations. They produce mostly the traditional items like hessian, sacking, CBC, and yarn/twin.
Besides EU and USA market, most of the products are exported to the Middle Eastern countries and India and some other Asian African markets.
But the political crises in Libya, Egypt and Syria and massive depreciation of the Indian rupee led the prices drop substantially over the past one year. The country is also likely to lose the new market at Thailand, for sacking and yarn, because of their political turmoil.
Export of jute and jute goods witnessed a negative growth during the first four months (July-October period) in current fiscal. The export of raw jute was heavily affected mainly because of the depreciation of Indian Rupee during the period. Raw jute fetched only $ 29.69 million in the first four months as against $ 77.13 million during the same period in last fiscal showing a major decline of 61.62 per cent.
Jute yarn and twine earned $ 134.69 million registering a negative growth of 1.49 per cent. Jute sacks and bags also witnessed a negative growth of 41.96 per cent with an earning of $ 42.61 million.
-With The Independent input
