Burlap from Pakistan

When India and Pakistan separated in 1947, their profitable burlap industry was also split. Pakistan grows 75% of the world's raw jute, but it did not have a single jute mill to make burlap. India owned all the mills, and when the Korean war sent the price of burlap soaring, India tried to gouge burlap users by slapping a heavy export tax on the cloth. Result: imports into the U.S., the biggest burlap user, dropped 20% as businessmen shifted to substitutes for packaging.

Not to be squeezed out of the burlap market, Pakistan raised $20 million for two jute mills and began to make its own burlap. Last week 297 bales, the first shipment of Pakistani burlap to the U.S., were unloaded in Brooklyn. Pakistan now plans to build four more jute mills, expects to be the world's second biggest producer of burlap by 1960. The U.S. Government was so impressed by Pakistan's determination to get ahead industrially that it is granting Pakistan $10 million for industrial expansion under the Point Four program.

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