has established itself as a fashionable, eco-friendly item – a golden fibre – in niche markets. The new diversified products included fine yarn, up-holstery and furnishing fabrics, aesthetically appealing shopping bags, fashion & decorative accessories, jute-plastic composites, jute particle boards (or chipboards), jute gardening products, non-woven products, home textiles, fashion textiles, handicrafts, gift items, promotional materials, and hand-made paper. These are all commercially available. New applications for jute, such as non-woven articles and special textiles, have emerged.
2.7. The Versatile Option
Rapid expansion of jute into a wide range of life style consumer products has been made possible due to the versatility of Jute. Spinning of high quality yarns and weaving of light-weight fine-textured fabrics of uniform structure in exotic colours and designs are made in both jute factories and hand loom sectors. With vastly improved bleaching, dyeing and finishing processes and by blending jute with other natural or synthetic fibres, the finished jute products now ensure feel, lustre, abrasion resistance and aesthetic appeal. 2.8. Competitors and Trends in Major Markets The jute industry is primarily based on the manufacture and supply of sacks and bags for agricultural produce. About 1.5 million tons worldwide out of a total output of 2.8 million tons or some 53% of production flow into this application. Of this world textile packaging market using jute India accounts for 1 million tons. What happens in the Indian market will crucially affect the rest of the world jute industry. China encouraged substitution of jute packaging by cheaper oil based woven olefin plastics. The result was that the Chinese jute industry all but collapsed. Underdeveloped economies with a weak transport infrastructure and large populations provide market opportunities for jute bags. Despite the ‘green’ or ecology friendly arguments which favour jute, and the fact that jute sacking will outwear and outlast woven plastic by on average 7/8 transport uses as compared to 3/4 for plastic these have not been factors which have had a significant impact in favour of jute. More important has been stack-ability where jute holds the advantage in terms of stability and ease of handling.