JUTE- Grower Thrown to the Wolves

September 18, 1970 worried about the problems they will have to tackle to ensure a steady How of aid m the future, their colleagues in the Finance Ministry are beginning to worry about the use to which the swelling foreign exchange reserves might be put to best advantage. The present easy foreign exchange position is something of a novel experience for officials of the Finance Ministry. Plagued by foreign exchange stringency for over two decades, the tendency on their part has been to hoard the reserves or to merely earn interest on them in world capital markets. This is, of course, not FOR all the best intentions of the authorities, raw jute prices are now ruling at below the statutory minimum floor in many jute-growing areas. The rate of arrival is picking up; it generally readies its peak just before the Durga Puja which falls this year at the end of September. But already there is sufficient evidence that unless some magic solution is devised in the meantime, it would be nearly impossible to restrain the steady downward drift in the fibre prices.