India re-quantifies anti-dumping duties on Bangladeshi and Nepali jute goods, pushing the top rate to 445 dollars a tonne and sorting exporters into winners and casualties
DHAKA, 29 September 2026
India has rewritten the duty schedule on jute imports from Bangladesh and Nepal, raising the ceiling rate on yarn and twine to 445 dollars a tonne and, in the same instrument, releasing six Bangladeshi mills from the duty entirely.
The measure is Notification No. 24/2026-Customs (ADD), issued by India’s Ministry of Finance on 24 September and effective the same day. It became public in South Asian business media on Monday, when The Business Standard in Dhaka and The Daily Star both carried it, with syndication following on Tuesday. The notification amends Notification 33/2022-Customs (ADD) of 30 December 2022, substituting a new duty table rather than creating a fresh measure. Duties on Bangladeshi and Nepali jute have run continuously since January 2017.
The distinction matters commercially. This is a re-quantification, and its effect is less to raise a wall than to sort the exporters standing at it.
“The rates of subsidies which they took into account for imposing anti-dumping duty on our exports have reduced significantly over the years,” Tapash Pramanik, chairman of the Bangladesh Jute Spinners Association, told The Daily Star. He described the measure as one sided and coercive, noting that current government support runs at only 3 to 5 per cent.
What the notification does
The new table runs to 82 entries across producers and product lines, covering Bangladesh and Nepal. Rates are expressed in United States dollars per metric tonne.
For jute yarn and twine, rates range from nil to 445 dollars a tonne. Hessian fabric attracts 56 to 292 dollars. Jute sacking bags range from nil to 283 dollars. Jute sacking cloth is covered, subject to an end use exemption described below.
The residual rates, applying to any producer not individually listed, are the ones that will reshape trade flows. For Bangladesh they are 445 dollars a tonne on jute yarn and twine, 88 dollars on hessian fabric and 283 dollars on jute sacking bags. For Nepal, the residual rate on jute yarn and twine is 119 dollars.
Thirty six Bangladeshi makers are individually listed. Asha Jute Industries holds the lowest listed rate at 59 dollars a tonne on yarn and twine. Super Jute Mills sits at 139 dollars. A. M. Jute Industries is at nil. Seventeen Bangladeshi firms carry 120 dollars a tonne on jute sacking bags. On the Nepali side, Arihant Multi-Fibres holds a nil rate on yarn and twine and Baba Jute Mills 59 dollars.
Six Bangladeshi producers face nil duty across every category they export: A. M. Jute Industries, Bonanza Jute Composite, Lovely Jute Mills, Nawhata Jute Mills, Poddar Agro Industries and Ranu Agro Industries. Two more, Natore Jute Mills and Janata Jute Mills, carry zero on sacking bags and hessian fabric. Both were beneficiaries of new shipper reviews in 2018.
The sacking cloth provision is an anti-circumvention device. The duty, in the notification’s words, “shall not apply, if (i) the goods are imported by a manufacturer of goods, other than those making jute sacking bags; (ii) the importer follows the procedure set out in the Customs (Import of Goods at Concessional Rate of Duty or for Specified End Use) Rules, 2022.” Ten named Bangladeshi producers qualify: Mouna Jute Mills, Arnu Jute Mills, Rahman Jute Mills, Jamuna Jute Industries, Sagar Jute Spinning Mills, Sidlaw Textiles Bangladesh, Partex Jute Mills, Asha Jute Industries, Nawhata Jute Mills and Mymensingh Jute Mills. The effect is to let Indian manufacturers other than bag makers buy Bangladeshi sacking cloth duty free while closing the route by which cloth could be converted into bags inside India to avoid the bag duty.
Against the previous range of roughly 19 to 352 dollars a tonne, the top of the schedule rises about 26 per cent. The more consequential change is at the bottom, where the floor more than triples, and in the spread between a cooperating, individually rated mill and an unlisted one. On yarn and twine the gap between Asha Jute’s 59 dollars and the 445 dollar residual is roughly seven and a half times.
The duty applies to goods originating in or exported from Bangladesh and Nepal, regardless of origin, a standard guard against trans-shipment. Tariff headings are 5307, 5310, 5607 and 6305, covering jute and bast fibre yarn, woven jute fabrics including hessian and sacking cloth, twine and cordage, and sacks and bags for packing.
Raw jute is not covered, and never has been. Indian mills depend on Bangladeshi raw fibre, and that asymmetry is the structural fact around which the whole dispute turns.
Because the notification substitutes a table within the 2022 measure rather than starting a new clock, it applies for the remaining period of the existing duty. Notification 33/2022 ran five years from 30 December 2022, putting expiry in late December 2027, roughly fifteen months away.
How the case reached this point
The chronology is long, and the length is part of Dhaka’s grievance.
The original investigation was initiated on 21 October 2015, with final findings on 20 October 2016 and a corrigendum in February 2017. Duties of 19 to 352 dollars a tonne on jute yarn and twine, hessian and sacking bags took effect in January 2017.
A series of new shipper reviews ran through 2018 and 2019 for Janata Jute Mills, Natural Jute Mill, Aman Jute Fibrous, Roman Jute Mills, Natore Jute Mills and Aziz Fibres. An anti-circumvention investigation into jute sacking cloth from Bangladesh was initiated on 20 March 2018. In June 2019 the finance ministry extended the duty on sacking bags and expanded scope to include sacking cloth.
A sunset review was initiated on 28 June 2021, with an oral hearing in January 2022 and final findings on 30 September 2022. The Directorate General of Trade Remedies concluded then that “there is continued dumping of these products from Nepal and Bangladesh and the imports are likely to enter the Indian market at dumped prices in the event of cessation of existing duty,” and recommended “continued imposition of the anti-dumping duty on the imports to remove injury to the domestic industry.” Notification 33/2022 followed in December 2022.
The current mid-term review was initiated on 30 June 2025 on petition by the Indian Jute Mills Association and the AP Mesta Twine Mills Association. Their case was that export prices from Bangladesh and Nepal were falling and that export volumes exceeded installed capacity, the classic signature of product being routed through low rate producers.
The investigation period ran from April 2024 to March 2025, with injury examined from April 2021. Questionnaires went to 54 Bangladeshi and 36 Nepali mills. Thirty eight Bangladeshi and five Nepali producers responded. Ten Bangladeshi producers were sampled, of which three were found to be dumping. An oral hearing was held on 5 March 2026, and final findings issued on 25 June 2026 recommending re-quantification. The notification followed three months later.
The authority found dumping margins of 5 to 55 per cent for Bangladeshi producers and 20 to 30 per cent for Nepali ones. Its core injury finding was a divergence: Indian demand fell 20 per cent during the investigation period while imports from Bangladesh and Nepal fell only 13 per cent. Foreign producers, in the authority’s language, were “gaining market share at the expense of Indian mills.”
That sixteen of the 54 Bangladeshi mills surveyed did not respond to the questionnaire is the proximate reason those mills now face residual rates. The schedule rewards participation in the proceeding, and it punishes absence.
Dhaka’s response, and its limits
As of Tuesday evening the only Bangladeshi reaction on record came from the jute spinners’ association. No statement had been issued by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Commerce, none by the Bangladesh Jute Mills Association, and no new World Trade Organization consultation request or dispute filing had been lodged. No retaliatory measure was announced.
Pramanik has been consistent for months. Told in June that the review pointed toward higher duties, he said: “We have informed them on many occasions. They do not pay heed.” He called the prospect a disaster and said any new measure would hit exports further. He described the restrictions then as “one-sided, coercive and discriminatory,” and put Bangladesh’s export incentives at 3 per cent on jute yarn and 5 per cent on hessian.
Speaking to bdnews24 on Monday about the sector’s prospects rather than the duty, he made a claim that frames the counterfactual: “Jute product exports could easily reach 2-3 billion dollars with steady raw jute supply and export incentives.”
Bangladesh has tried the diplomatic route repeatedly. Then commerce minister Tipu Munshi wrote to his Indian counterpart in April 2022. A delegation travelled to India in December 2022. Md Hafizur Rahman, an additional secretary to the commerce minister, said at the time: “We proposed to the Indian commerce and finance ministries for the removal of the anti-dumping duty on Bangladeshi jute and jute goods,” adding that “we want full removal of the anti-dumping duty, as India is one of the biggest markets for the local jute and jute goods.” A duty free quota of 200,000 tonnes a year was proposed and not granted.
The World Trade Organization track is a 2021 story that never completed. Bangladesh’s commerce ministry authorised its WTO cell to initiate dispute settlement in September 2021 over jute, hydrogen peroxide and fishing nets, after India rejected bilateral appeals in January of that year, with support from the Advisory Centre on WTO Law. Officials said at the time that “now there is no alternative but to go to the WTO seeking remedy.” No case has been traced. Dhaka’s standing argument, that the duties breach rules limiting such measures to five years, is weakened by India having run a proper sunset review in 2021 and 2022 and a mid-term review in 2025 and 2026.
There is precedent for reversal. India withdrew anti-dumping duties on Bangladeshi hydrogen peroxide in 2022 following a sunset review, evidence that the measures are reversible with evidence and diplomacy. Duties on fishing nets, imposed in 2018 at 2.69 dollars a kilogram, remain. A fresh anti-dumping investigation into Bangladeshi polyethylene terephthalate film was initiated by letter dated 13 July 2026, with a virtual oral hearing on 6 August.
In that case Khandaker Abdul Muktadir, Bangladesh’s commerce minister, said: “We will gather the necessary data regarding PET film and request the Indian government not to impose anti-dumping duties.” Sheikh Bashir Uddin, a director of Akij Biax Films, argued that Bangladeshi exports “are market-driven and do not involve dumping.” Mustafizur Rahman, distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, offered the economist’s version: “Given electricity and gas crises, it is hard to believe Bangladeshi companies export at prices below production costs.”
No comment from the Indian Jute Mills Association on the 24 September notification has been located. The association’s most forceful public claim on the measure dates from 2022: “The jute industry would have been completely wiped off by now, had the Indian government not imposed anti-dumping duty.”
The routing barrier that matters more than the duty
The duty does not operate alone. It sits inside a stack of restrictions, almost all of them imposed since the change of government in Dhaka in 2024.
On 17 May 2025 India restricted Bangladeshi garments and processed foods through port limitations. On 27 June 2025 the Directorate General of Foreign Trade restricted jute and woven fabrics via land routes with immediate effect, covering flax tow and waste, jute and other bast fibres, single and multiple jute yarns, woven fabrics of flax and unbleached woven fabrics of jute. Entry was permitted only at Nhava Sheva seaport in Maharashtra. Bangladeshi goods transiting India to Nepal and Bhutan were unaffected, while re-export from Bangladesh to India via those countries remained prohibited. In mid August 2025 the restriction was extended to bleached and unbleached woven jute and bast fabrics, to twine, cordage and rope of jute, and to sacks and bags of jute, again limited to Nhava Sheva.
The logistics effect is arguably larger than the duty. It converts a short overland haul into West Bengal into a sea voyage around the subcontinent to Maharashtra, adding freight cost, transit time and inventory carry, and it severs Bangladeshi shippers from the eastern Indian mills that are their natural buyers. Duty and routing form a combined barrier and should be read together.
Bangladesh has its own restriction pointing the other way. On 8 September 2024 raw jute was placed under conditional export approval, limiting fibre supply to Indian mills.
The industry the duty is meant to protect
Whether Indian mills are being injured by Bangladeshi finished goods, or by something else entirely, is the question the notification does not answer.
India’s jute sector employs about 400,000 workers including forward and backward linkages, with installed capacity above 50 million spindles and 842,000 rotors. Production reached 73 lakh bales of 180 kilograms each in the 2024 to 2025 financial year, with 75 lakh bales estimated for 2025 to 2026, from about 662,000 hectares under cultivation. India accounts for roughly 75 per cent of estimated world jute production and consumes about 90 per cent domestically. Exports were 204 million dollars in the 2024 financial year, 229 million in 2025 and 231.49 million in 2026.
The stress in West Bengal, however, points at inputs. Two mills suspended operations in December 2025, Jagatdal Jute Mill in North 24 Parganas and Mahadev Jute Mill in Howrah, affecting roughly 5,000 workers. The Indian Jute Mills Association warned that more than half of the state’s mills could close by March 2026, endangering over 400,000 direct mill workers. One mill official said plants “are unable to procure jute to operate.” Raw jute prices rose from about 60,000 rupees a tonne in July 2024 to about 110,000 rupees in December of that year, with stocks below four lakh bales, equivalent to six to eight weeks of operations. In the 2024 to 2025 season, 70 lakh bales were produced but only 6.24 lakh procured at minimum support price, with the market at roughly 8,858 rupees a quintal against a support price of 5,650.
Duties on finished Bangladeshi goods do nothing about fibre supply. Because raw jute is exempt, India cannot use trade remedies against the input it actually depends on. Demand fell 20 per cent in the investigation period, which is a domestic consumption problem rather than an import problem. If the association’s March warning has materialised, the duty will read as protection against the wrong threat.
Trade flows and what happens next
Bangladeshi jute shipments to India have been falling without the new schedule. Volumes were 1.43 lakh tonnes in the 2023 to 2024 financial year and 1.17 lakh tonnes in 2024 to 2025, a decline of 18 per cent.
Total Bangladeshi jute and jute goods exports tell a different story. They peaked at 1.16 billion dollars in the 2021 financial year, fell to about 820 million in 2025, then recovered to roughly 884 million in 2026, up nearly 8 per cent. In July and August of the current fiscal year they reached 162.5 million dollars, up 37.09 per cent from 118.6 million a year earlier. Within that, raw jute rose 36 per cent, jute yarn 58 per cent and other jute products 48.15 per cent. Sacks and bags fell 13 per cent.
That last figure is the tell. Value added bag capacity, precisely the segment covered by heading 6305 and precisely what packaging buyers source, is the part under pressure. Syed Md Nurul Basir, director general of Bangladesh’s Department of Jute, restated the official ambition on Monday: “Our target is to earn 2 billion dollars from the jute sector within five years.”
Bilateral trade remains heavily one sided. Bangladesh exported about 1.76 billion dollars to India in the 2024 to 2025 financial year and imported about 9.62 billion, a deficit near 7.86 billion. In the 2015 to 2016 financial year jute products accounted for 37.8 per cent of Bangladesh’s exports to India. The collapse from that share is the long arc of this story.
Implications for global buyers
For buyers outside India, three consequences follow.
First, supply is diverting rather than disappearing. Bangladeshi jute exports are growing overall while India bound volume shrinks. Turkey, China, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Pakistan, Russia and Iran absorb the redirected tonnage. In the near term that is price favourable for non Indian buyers, because more Bangladeshi material is competing for their orders.
Second, India is not a swing supplier. Holding roughly 75 per cent of world production but consuming about 90 per cent domestically, and operating under jute packaging mandates for food grain and sugar that keep its mills fed by captive demand, India does not release volume into export markets when prices rise. Bangladesh remains the marginal export source, which means Bangladeshi policy risk is the buyer’s policy risk.
Third, the segment mix is shifting. With bag exports down 13 per cent while yarn is up 58 per cent, Bangladeshi mills are pushing toward fibre and cloth and away from low margin bag conversion. Hessian and burlap buyers in Europe and North America should expect less enthusiasm for bag orders and should price accordingly.
The reliability question sits behind all three. Thirty five state owned Bangladeshi jute mills have closed, with the government attempting to reopen some through leasing. Raw jute has been under conditional export approval since September 2024. Gas and electricity shortages are a recurring constraint. Buyers indexing to Bangladeshi jute should build dual sourcing and treat Dhaka’s raw fibre export policy as a monitored variable rather than a constant.
The next decision point is structural. With roughly fifteen months left on the underlying 2022 measure, the sunset review falls due around mid to late 2027. That is when the duty either lapses or receives another five years, and it is the point at which a Bangladeshi WTO case, if one ever comes, would carry leverage. Until then the schedule issued on 24 September governs, and its main effect will be to concentrate trade into the 36 listed names and the ten end use exempt cloth suppliers, while unlisted mills abandon the Indian market rather than pay 445 dollars a tonne.