ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles of Japanese cotton trading companies in the development of the Japanese cotton industry through the raw cotton trade. In the pre-war period, raw cotton and cotton goods were the main commodities in the trade between Japan and British India. Although the volume of raw cotton imported from British India to Japan decreased while the volume of exported Japanese cotton textile goods increased in the 1930s, the Japanese cotton industry relied on the British Indian market for both imports and exports until 1935.