Discuss the locational aspects of silk textile industry around the world.
Unlike the cotton textile and woolen textile industry that are largely market oriented, silk industry has developed in countries with a high level of technological development and the regions where skilled manpower is available.
This is largely because silk textiles being costly, do not have a demand in all sections of the population. Therefore silk textile production has been influenced more by local skills or levels of technological development.
Raw silk is a light material and can be transported to areas having best conditions for manufacturing of textiles.
Due to this fact, the silk textile industry is generally important in highly industrialised regions with skilled manpower and other advantages incidental to high levels of industrial development. Presence of skilled manpower is one of the important factors that drew manufacture of silk textiles to France in the region of Lyons.
The most important producers of silk textiles in the world are Japan, US, France, China, Taiwan, Germany, UK and India. The East Asian region accounting for about 85% of the production of raw silk produces only 35% of the natural silk fabrics. Japan is the largest exporter of raw silk. The US and a number of other important silk manufactures produce fabrics using imported raw materials. The bulk of the raw silk supply comes from Japan and China, and this area supplying coarse silk, accounts for about 85% of the world silk supply, including the raw material for finer quality fabrics coming mostly from Italy and France.
Topics: GS-I: Factors Responsible for the Location of Industries in Various Parts of World