Indian Jute Industry in the Global Market

Indian Economy is experiencing a series of reforms leading to an integration of the domestic economy with the world economy under the banner of globalisation. Different protectionist policies were devised to create conducive environment for the domestic industries to grow. The impact of sudden shift of focus from ‘national planning’ to global market would definitely be different for different industries. We were interested in examining the influences of this change in policy orientation on the structure and performance on Indian Jute industry as it has a global significance and has been enjoying a ‘major-industry’ status since the colonial period. The analysis reveals that the Jute industry is changing structurally and hence performing accordingly to cope with the changing perspective of global market integration. It still reveals considerable comparative advantage and the market, though slowly, has been still growing internationally while some of the new products resulting from recent diversifications have been experiencing steady expansion. Hence a turn – around for India’s Jute industry is a strong possibility in reality, if appropriate policy interventions can be made.