Jute trade

The major producing country of jute is India[1] and biggest exporter is Bangladesh, due to their natural fertile soil[citation needed].

Thomas Neigh, a Dundee merchant invented the mechanical process of spinning jute in 1833 by first soaking it in whale oil.

[3] British merchants exported raw jute from Bengal in increasing quantities from the 1840s to replace flax in the Dundee mills.

Many Scots worked in Bengal to set up jute factories for Indians, dominated by Marwari brokers such as G. D. Birla.

[citation needed] Other common jute products behind CBC are carpet yarn, cordage, padding, felts, decorative fabrics, and miscellaneous heavy-duty items for industrial use.

[7] India produces 60% of global jute products; however, problems such as lack of investment, water shortage, poor quality seeds, and loss of crop land to urbanisation slow its growth as a biodegradable substitute for materials such as plastic which contribute to pollution.

[3] Jute was an export material demanded by South East Asia which was fulfilled by Indian and European trading firms.

[3] India was gaining around £35 million per annum from processed goods, with only £8m earned by sales of raw jute to Brazil, New York, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Partition meant that 75% of the Jute growing areas were in Pakistan, but all 106 mills, the baling centres and export hubs were in India.

Jute was the subject of the first inter-Dominion agreement, however, the devaluation of the Indian rupee and Pakistani demands for a share of the export tariff led to break downs.

[10] Despite this, a long depression ensued due to the politics involved and the oligopolistic practice of the Indian Jute Mills Association.

[13] In the 1830s Thomas Neigh imported jute to Dundee and experimented using flax spinning machines to make cloth.

In 1855 George Acland was financed by Bysamber Sen to import Dundee fabric spinning machinery (and whale oil) to start the first factory in India at Serampore.

After the independence of Bangladesh, most privately owned jute mills were nationalised under the socialist policies of the Awami League government.

The industry has faced considerable trouble, for example, a mill owner was murdered by his workers in 2015 when he proposed cutting down hours.

Since the millennium government procurement for mandatory packaging in jute has decreased and is only now being reversed - at the consumer level – by the plastic ban.