The nature of mill production has some basic differences in Bangladesh and India. In Bangladesh major production is in the spinning sector (64 mills) while in India (78 mills) most of the mills are composite mills.

India is the leading jute goods producing country in the world accounting for 70% of estimated world production primarily because of large number of composite mills. The total production of jute goods is around 16, 00,000-18, 00,000 MT a year with minor variations. The production suffered in 2006-07 and in 2009-10 due to strike in the jute mills. The mills in India produces around 200,000-350,000 MT of Hessian and around 800,000-1150, 000 MT of Sacking. The average domestic consumption of total production is about 85% and exports about 200 – 300 MT of different jute products a year.

Public sector jute mills under Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) produce on an average 1,50,000 MT of jute products of which about 1,20,000 MT is exported. Private sector jute mills enlisted with Bangladesh Jute Mills Association (BJMA) produce about 1, 50,000 MT of jute products and exports around 80,000-1, 00,000 MT.

Yarn producing mills under Bangladesh Jute Spinners Association (BJSA) produce around 3,00,000 MT or more of jute yarn annually and export about 2,50,000- 3,00,000 MT mainly to Middle East countries, Europe, USA, etc. Yarn sector in Bangladesh has flourished tremendously over the last decade compared to the composite mills. The closed mills of various countries ( Algeria, Italy, France, Belgium, UK, Bulgaria, Brazil, Thailand, etc.) have been relocated in Bangladesh which started production of jute yarns of various counts to meet the requirement of foreign consumers. In 2010 Bangladesh exported about 3, 80,000 MT of jute yarn to various countries, Turkey being the lead importer with 37% of the total yarn export. Composite mills, however, could not fare so well because of shrinkage of export market for hessian, carpet backing cloth, etc.
 

As recognized by most studies, modernization would include development and adoption of new generation machinery as jute needs to be processed at a technological level equivalent to that used by other fibres for its survival against the competition from competing alternative fibres. New machinery need to be designed to process greater volumes, process faster with higher standards, consume less power and be cheaper and easy to maintain. Electronic retrofits need to be introduced in these machines for effective quality control and continuous monitoring.

Modern machinery which can be adapted to work successfully with jute are high output spreaders, new design high output Breaker and Finisher cards, high speed & high output drawing frames,  ring twisters, shuttle less looms, precision winders, etc. Installation of shuttle less looms like Sulzer, STB, Dornier, ATPR, etc would improve the productivity and quality as well. Ring spinning may be adopted to produce fine yarns which will be subsequently used in making light weight fabrics to be used for making various products like shopping bags, decorative, household items, handicrafts, etc. Establishment of an automatic jute bag sewing unit would increase the productivity to a great extent.

A number of jute mill machinery manufacturers like Lagan Engineering Company Ltd, Milltex Engineering (P) Ltd, GSL, India and Zhejiang Golden Eagle Co., Ltd, China manufacture and supply jute processing machinery to the jute industry of Bangladesh and India.  

Government of India is currently implementing a project on ‘Jute Technology Mission (JTM)’ for overall development of the jute sector in India. Under Mini Mission IV of JTM, a Scheme for Machinery Development has been earmarked for technology upgradation in the jute industry. Several mills have taken subsidy benefits under the scheme and have gone mostly for partial replacement and modernization. The scheme is also supporting a modern machinery development program with Lagan Engineering Company.