Vol. 12, Issue 6 (2023)

Author(s):
S Selvanayaki, MP Divya, KT Parthiban, N Deepa, R Ravi and S Varadha Raj

Abstract:
Packing case industry is an important wood based small scale industry in Tamil Nadu. Based on their distribution, 20 micro firms and 10 small size firms were taken for the present study. Rubber wood from Kerala is the major source of raw material for the packing case industries in the study area. Pine wood is the most preferred species for manufacturing packing cases for export purpose owing to its superior qualities such as light weight, non-bending nature and relative resistance to insect and fungal attack. Apart from the firms’ margin, the difference between the average sale price of the finished products and that of the procurement price of raw materials consisted of other variable costs. Pine wood is the most preferred material for export purpose and the micro and small industries in the study area need on an average 5,000 CFT and 10,000 to 20,000 CFT of pine wood per year respectively. The total annual demand of pine wood by all the firms put together would be 7,00,000,CFT. The results of profitability analysis shows that the small firms (7-11%) had a better edge in terms of the return on sales over the micro firms (5-8%).