The short-term threat to raw jute supplies for the Tayside textile industry still persists. Since the end of April only three ships from East Pakistan have reached Dundee with cargoes totalling under 30,000 bales (400lb a bale). With the high interest charges prevailing over the past year or two spinners have tended to shorten stocks with the result then they were not so well placed to weather a serious delay of shipments as they might have been in the past.

Only the fact that demand for jute yam and cloth has been falling sharply in face of competition from countries with low labour costs and the rapid development of polypropylene as a challenger in various traditional jute markets, resulting in a succession of mill and factory closures, has prevented a raw material crisis.

Several firms introduced short-time working to eke out supplies, but further shipments are now urgently required if the industry is to be ready for a full resumption at the end of the summer holiday fortnight on August 9. Three vessels are reported to have sailed from East Pakistan with cargoes for Dundee and Antwerp, but the Dundee share is unknown.

It is believed these shipments will have absorbed most of the raw jute which was held within reasonable distance of the Pakistani ports when the trouble, started. Their removal will have freed barges, but there is still a big question mark ever the capacity of the inland water transport system to maintain a regular flow of jute from the production areas to baling centres and thence on the larger waterways to the ports.

Reports from Pakistan indicate a serious shortage of barges and a reliable estimate is that raw jute shipment is likely to be subject to disruption for the remainder of this year at least.

Emphatic assurances have been received from the Pakistan Jute Board through the Pakistan High Commissioner in London that there is plenty of jute available from the 1970-71 crop at or near terminal points and baling centres to maintain normal shipment up to the end of August, with top priority being given to the removal of bottlenecks hampering the flow of further supplies. But the spinners regard the estimate of a normal flow being resumed in September as optimistic.

The board maintains that more fibre will be available for export in the season just started than was available last year, and claims that export prices will be maintained at a reasonable level. To spinners this means that they must fall substantially from the inflated levels reached over the past month.