Jute, jam and journalism

In the month of September1906, six merchants of the city of London gathered in a pub called the Oxford Arms with the intention of forming a Jute Goods Trading Association. The initial fund of the Association was £

7000.00. Its charter: to have better exchange of information and expansion of trade in jute products. Fifty years later, the membership of the Association grew to one hundred. This group commanded half of global trade in jute products, which pervaded across almost three quarters of the earth. The United Kingdom Jute Goods Association, as it is known, is going to celebrate its 100 years in 2006.

In 1826, eighty years before the UJKGA was formed, the first ever vessel to carry raw jute from the port of Calcutta reached the harbour of Dundee in Scotland to be spun into jute textile. Dundee soon became famous for three J's: Jute, Jam and Journalism. The Jute Raj had arrived in the United Kingdom.

On the 1st of January 1947, Londoners greeted the New Year with a sense of gloom. Precious few had greeted the morning with a hangover. Liquor, where it had been available the night before for New Year's celebrations had cost eight Pounds a bottle. New Year's day saw a black Austin Princess gliding through the deserted streets of the capital towards Whitehall. Its passenger slumped in the backseat with a gloomy and tense face. He had been summoned to Number Ten Downing Street to be told by the then Socialist Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the British were withdrawing from India. The passenger in the black Austin Princess knew that this onerous task was just about to be handed over to him. The name of the passenger was Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India.

The 1st of January 1972 brought very difficult times for a passenger whose white Ambassador was gliding through the street of Calcutta heading towards Theatre Road via Park Circus. The passenger in the white Ambassador had just traveled all the way from Edinburgh to Calcutta via London. The infrastructure of his industry in Scotland had been dried down due to lack of raw material. Labourers were sitting idle as Dundee Harbour had not received a single ton of raw jute for the nine long months of the Freedom struggle in Bangladesh.

The name of the passenger in the white Ambassador was Edward Bill Duncun, the Purchase Director of Tay Textile Jute Mill in Dundee. He was popularly known as the Jute King of Europe during the 1960s and 1970s. The purpose of his going to the Theatre Road in Calcutta was to get a permit to visit Khulna and Narayangonj to book at least a few thousand tons of raw jute and arrange to ship them to Dundee. Even in those days of euphoria and lawlessness, Edward Bill Duncan had been able to establish his supply of raw jute from Bangladesh to Dundee.

I met him for the first time in 1967 when I was posted in Nakalia, a 'jute village' in the Pabna district. He came to procure raw jute for Tay Textile. He always coined the expression that the last two links between the East and the West are Jute and the English language! The last time I met him was in February 1973 at the Crompton Hotel in Queensgate, London.

During the course of our discussions he told me that with proper attention and care jute would be able to survive Centuries to come. He also argued that Bangladesh should divert its attention from export of raw jute to export of jute goods. Jute has its own intrinsic quality and strength. Cocoa in Ghana and Ivory Coast is better able to retain its flavour in jute bags, seed potato in Holland and Poland breathes better in jute sacks and cotton in Egypt, Syria and Sudan does not get fabricated in cotton bags made out of Jute, he said. His prophecy was so true to the word that even today these markets remain the main consumers of jute sacks. Jute cloth in Iran is called Chatai. It is used for roofing and house construction in all of Iran. If we add up the total import demand of these countries the total quantity according to FAO will come to around 175 thousand tonnes.

If one adds up the import demand of the above with the rest of the world the total will come to 700 thousand tonnes out of which demand for traditional jute products will be around 500 thousand tonnes. The current production of traditional jute products in Bangladesh is around 270 thousand tonnes, which is much less than the world import demand. As a result India's export figure jumped to 128 thousand tonnes in 2002-03 from 85 thousand tonnes in 1998-99. On the other hand export of traditional products from Bangladesh decreased to 199 thousand tonnes in 2002-03 against 269 thousand tonnes of 1998-99. Thus the decrease in export of Bangladesh jute products has been 26 percent whereas increase in India's export during the same period was 50 percent. The situation is so alarming that if Bangladesh were to meet demands in Syria, it cannot meet the demand in Iran. Similarly if we sell to Sudan rest of the demand in Africa will be met by India. Even Pakistan recently exported jute cloth to Iran.

The above scenario does not justify closure of Jute Mills in Bangladesh, including Adamjee resulting in loss of foreign exchange earnings of around 80 million US Dollar per year. The social cost is not to be overlooked. The reasons for closing down jute mills as stated by the experts busy cultivating the field include losses incurred by state owned enterprises, inefficiency in production and lack of trade facilitation, and corruption.

To reinstate the jute industry to its former glory, resources should be channeled to their highest value use and we should specialise in sectors in which we have a competitive advantage. So long as demand is there, and we can achieve competitive advantage, we should try to promote viable supply within the context of sound industrial policy, which could include:

a) Immediate installation and operation of productive Adamjee jute machinery in other mills.

b) Introduction of prize and punishment to raise efficiency.

c) Proper management and manning.

d) Link subsidy to performance.

e) Corruption could not be cured but could be controlled, after all when Islamabad was built using jute funds, angels were not running the jute industry.

To achieve all of the above we do not need overpaid foreign Consultants; neither do we need soft loans from abroad. We can fulfil this objective, as the people of West Bengal have done just across the border. The Golden Handshake is nowadays coined as a sad joke in India.

Two centuries after 1st vessel anchored in Surat, the British Raj left. Exactly one hundred and eighty six years after the first vessel arrived in Dundee harbour from Calcutta Jute Raj continues to exist even today. Known to be true to its legend jute gratefully remembers the prophecy made by Edward Bill Duncan in 1973 in Crompton Hotel at Queensgate in London.

On another occasion I had quoted the definition of a Jute Man, and it read "Jute is the product of a Seed grown in Bangladesh and West Bengal to keep the farmers broke, middlemen happy and buyers crazy. It is planted in the spring, mortgaged in the summer and left in the field in winter. The fibre varies in colour and length and grading is done by Hunch, Touch and Feel. The man who can guess nearest the grade of the fibre is called a Jute Man by the public, a magician by the farmer, a poor businessman by his creditors and a fool by the policy makers." So be it!

Khaled Rab is former Director, Market Promotion, Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation, Brussels