Experts and businesses on Monday urged the government to formulate a jute pulp and paper act, saying that production of pulp and paper at a massive scale from jute could help revive the country’s jute sector.‘If the jute pulp and paper kicks off, only one area is enough to consume a vast amount of jute,’ former caretaker government adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman said at a seminar in capital Dhaka.Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry organised the seminar titled ‘Diversification of Jute Goods for the Development of this Industry: Opportunities & Challenges’.The consumption of jute in pulp and paper manufacturing would help create demand for the natural fibre even inside the country, he said.Zillur said that jute could be the economic growth driver for the country.He suggested the businessmen and traders in the jute sector lobby the government for arranging two kinds of funds — technology upgradation fund and innovation fund — for the revival of the sector.Textiles and jute minister Golam Dastagir Gazi said he was going to open a display centre at Motijheel in Dhaka where all the jute goods would be sold to grab the local market. Such display centres would be set up in divisional and district level gradually, the minister said.The minister also said if the Bangladeshi jute exporters failed to grab the world market with quality jute goods, other natural goods would occupy the market.A massive jute goods market has been emerging worldwide as the consumers do not prefer the plastic goods anymore, the minister said.DCCI president Osama Taseer said that Bangladesh needed to think how the country could use technology of the fourth industrial revolution for the development of the jute sector.In order to revive the jute sector and to encourage making paper from jute pulp, it is important to formulate a jute pulp and paper act, he said.We believe, jute is one of the promising industries after RMG. Policy incentive and innovation will take it further ahead,’ Osama added.DCCI director Rashedul Karim Munna said according to International Jute Study Group, annual demand for shopping bag is 500 billion pieces worldwide.The market size of jute bag would be $2.6 billion by 2021 and the market size of home textiles would be $130 billion by 2021, he said.
