Textiles

Abstract

The textile industry is one of the oldest of manufacturing industries. It is, even in the form of an organized factory activity, one of the first to be established in developing countries. Its technology is relatively stable and well diffused. Major process innovations are highly embodied in capital equipment. It is far less scale-intensive than the other industries reviewed here, though they also have relatively stable and equipment embodied technologies. Further, also to some extent unlike the others, it is possible in the textile industry to use older technologies in low wage economies and remain competitive with the latest vintage of technologies (for some if not all categories of product). Though the technological requirements of setting up textiles facilities are less than, say, steel or cement, the efficient operation of a textile mill can be technologically quite demanding, even when (in some cases, especially) somewhat older technologies are used.¹