ABSTRACT
The cotton textile industry has been at least since the sixties the second largest so-called large scale industry in Bangladesh in terms of capital invested, value added, and employment (jute being the largest). These two industries are in a sense mirror images of each other, the jute industry using a domestically produced raw material to produce what is primarily an export item, and the cotton textiles industry using primarily imported raw materials (almost entirely so if one includes spinning) to produce for the domestic market (we are not discussing here the emergent export-orientated ready-made garment industry). A comparison between these two industries should therefore also cast some light on the proposition that export-oriented industries tend to be more efficient than import substituting ones.
