In addition to technological progress, confidence in raw silk brands was a necessary condition for the development of the silk-reeling industry in Japan. Silk reeling in Suwa district, in Nagano prefecture, developed rapidly from the mid-1880s, by increasing exports to the United States. During the late 1890s, however, it had to undergo reorganization because a higher level of quality, especially in uniformity, had come to be required as a result of technological progress in the U. S. silk manufacturing industry, particularly the speeding up of power looms. Up till then, small factories had reeled silk separately and then had re-reeled and baled cooperatively. However, in order to produce uniform raw silk, pioneering firms introduced continuous production systems from reeling to re-reeling and packing, in far larger factories. Furthermore, they established their own brands by labeling original chops as a commitment to maintain quality. This was possible since the commitment was self-enforcing, given that their production systems were efficient in producing high quality raw silk, and that American buyers paid sufficient quality premiums when the guarantee of quality was reliable. By fulfilling these conditions of technology and information, the pioneering firms were able to return to the top of the world silk-reeling industry in the 1900s.
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