Five mostly inoperative state-owned jute mills are set to go under private management as the government has completed formalities to lease them out to the private entrepreneurs, said a senior jute ministry official Friday.
The move will create employment for around 7000 people,
The official said Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) has already despatched green signals to the selected private operators to go ahead with their preparation to resume production at the mills, three of them remained shut for long, by next one month.
He said textile and jute adviser of the caretaker government Md Anwarul Iqbal will formally announce this at a 'meet the press programme' in the city (today) Saturday.
"We have hastened the move to help the private operators procure raw materials during the ongoing jute harvesting season," the official said.
A BJMC official said the jute mills are People's Jute Mills and R R Jute Mills in Khulna, Kaomi Jute Mills in Pabna, M M Jute Mills and Karnaphuli Jute Mills in Chittagong.
In July last, the government shut down the Kaomi Jute Mills, People's Jute Mills and Karnaphuli Jute Mills, leaving a total of about 6000 employees and workers jobless while the R R Jute Mill and M M Jute Mills remained operative under bad financial conditions.
Later, the government decided to lease out its closed and loss-making jute mills to the private operators to revitalise the country's public jute sector, the accumulated loss of which has already reached Tk 50 billion.
Against this backdrop, the advisory council on economic affairs at its meeting in December last with finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam approved the proposal for leasing out eight such mills.
Officials said the current initiative to lease out the closed or losing state-owned jute mills is to adjust their liabilities with leased money.
The government will receive around Tk160 million a year through leasing out the mills to the private operators, they said.
The officials said one of the main purposes of leasing out the jute mills is to help revive the country's jute industry under private sector and boost earning through export of more jute goods.
There is a huge potential of Bangladeshi jute goods, including bags and sacks for packing of agricultural produces, minerals, cement and furnishing fabric and fashion accessories, as many developed counties have planned to reduce use of synthetics considering the environmental hazards, they said.
Apart from this, the officials said, there is also huge demand for Bangladeshi jute hessian as it works very well for soil erosion control.
"We hope the contribution of jute goods to the country's foreign exchange earning will further rise as the factories will help get more export orders," another official said.
In the first 11 months of the just concluded fiscal Bangladesh's export earning from jute goods stood at $292.87 million, a fall by 1.60 per cent over that of the same period of fiscal 2006-07.
However, the export of raw jute increased by 14.41 per cent to $156.90 million in the first 11 months of the last fiscal.
