When, one speaks of self-sufficiency in any commodity, one means balancing the supply with the demand or the consumption requirement over a period of time. For achieving such balance or even to plan for achieving such balance, it is necessary to have reliable data about the current consumption requirement, the current supply position and the trend of change in both upto a certain point of time in the future. Unfortunately, there are no adequate and reliable data on the pattern of consumption requirement of various forest produces nor is there any data about the supply position.except about those which are obtained from the reserved forests. As a result it is extremely difficult even
to assess the situation correctly. There are no literature which can be drawn upon to prepare any paper on the subject. There are a number of feasibility studies on the aspect of utilisation of forest produce but they do not reflect the total position. Three publications which have been found to be useful and relevant to the subject arc: (1) “Timber Trends studies in East Pakistan” prepared in 1957 by Kr. S.I-I. Ishaque, Forest Utilisation Officer of the then Government of Pakistan, (2) “The Forest Products Market Survey” prepared in the year 1963 by Messrs Forestal
International, and (3) ”An estimate of long-term timber trends and prospects in East Pakistan” prepared in the year 1968 by the Chief Economist and the Assistant Chief of the Planning Department of the then Government of East Pakistan. These publications have been used freely in preparing this paper. In those works attempts have been made to assess the consumption requirement of ‘various forest produces and, in the absence of reliable data, it has been done, obviously, on certain assumptions made by the authors themselves and it is interesting to note that they have produced results which do not agree with each other. This disagreement amply clarifies as to how difficult it is to arrive at any
reasonably correct conclusion. As there is no better information available, the figures mentioned in the estimates prepared by the Planning Department, being the most recent one, has been taken as guide and the discussion is being based on these figures.