The Development of Appropriate Technologies for Export Promotion in the Silk-Reeling Industry

Abstract

In the same way that the cotton industry led the Industrial Revolution in England,2 the silk industry played a critically important role in the industrialization of pre-war Japan which began in around 1885. There were three reasons for this: first, the silk industry, a typically agro-based, export-oriented industry, attracted a considerable sum of foreign currency until the early 1930s; exports of raw silk alone comprised 36 per cent of total exports in the 1870s and 1880s, seldom dipping below 25 per cent through to the early 1930s.3 The same was not true for the cotton-spinning and weaving industries which had to compete head-to-head with foreign imports. Second, whereas raw materials (cotton) and machines (spinning machines and large-size power looms) in the cotton industry were all imported from abroad, the silk industry was supplied with domestically raised cocoons, domestically manufactured reeling machines and other related instruments. This made it easier for the silk industry to attract more foreign currency than its cotton counterpart. Third, the silk-reeling industry, together with sericulture which supplied raw materials to it, gave additional employment and income opportunities to farmers during their agricultural off-season. The additional income was especially important for the farmers since they were located in the countryside far from the bustling industrial centres.