Exploring Constraints and policy guidelines of Eco-friendly Jute Micro-Enterprises Development in Bangladesh

Abstract

The study investigates the obstacles face by eco-friendly jute micro-enterprises in Bangladesh. The principal source for collecting data was the face to face survey during February to June 2015. Moreover, a few qualitative interviews were also conducted. The data was collected from 150 jute micro-enterprises located in Dhaka, Norsingdi, Tangail and Rangpur. A principal component analysis approach was used to rank the highest and lowest obstacles factor for doing business in jute micro-enterprises of Bangladesh. Among major obstacles, Human Resource related constraints was ranked highest constrains which items are included such as lack of skilled workers, high labor cost and no appropriate training facilities. In addition, the second highest ranked obstacles were labeled as Financial and resource Constraints. Second component consists of six items such as lack of loan facilities, lack of availability of capital; lack of raw materials, lack of quality fabrics, high price of raw materials, and long process of loan approval. The other obstacles respectively determined by the principal component analysis included "third constraints is labeled as physical resource constraints (utility shortages , lack of supporting factories), fourth is labeled as marketing and policy inputs constraints (lack of foreign customers, lack of incentives for jute diversified products, lack of market information, modern equipments, research and development facilities.  Besides from the qualitative study it is found that corruption and long process in getting benefits from government offices incentives and other benefits, Lack of raw materials bank (RMB) in the districts level, High fees in national and local trade fair (Bengali: Mela), lack of training program on diversified designs, lack of knowledge on eco-compliance which also causes of slow growth. Research concludes that the findings of the study will have practical implications for policies makers to overcome major obstacles for the environmental friendly jute micro-enterprises development in Bangladesh.