The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to recent newspaper reports, the government has decided to provide Taka 125 crore to the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation to procure raw jute but on the condition the corporation will lease out eight of its jute mills. The finance ministry has 'tagged the condition' to lease out eight state-owned jute mills as the corporation has so far failed to do the job within the stipulated time set earlier. The ministry is financing the BJMC to purchase raw jute during the ongoing harvest season for its remaining 14 jute mills. A letter attaching four conditions, in this regard, has already been sent along with the allocation of the fund to the ministry concerned clearly stating that BJMC must get rid of the eight jute mills that are stated to be 'most sickly'. Besides the fund should be treated as a government loan repayable over 20 years at 5 per cent interest.

The jute and textile ministry, meanwhile, has lined up the process of leasing out the eight jute mills - as five of them located in Chittagong and Khulna regions are in final stage of transfer to private companies with a view to making them profitable ones again. Bureaucratic tangles and inexpediences at all levels in running an industry like this besides widespread corruption in fact, has turned the once-profit-earning jute mills into huge losing concerns under nationalisation since 1972. However, jute growers and traders are expecting more profits this year following high demand of raw jute in the international market for which prices have increased remarkably at the beginning of the season. Besides Pakistan and India - the two top buyers - China, Brazil, Spain and Thailand are Bangladesh's major markets for raw jute.