In the early 20th century, strikes kept Indian textile mills from increasing the number of looms each worker operated, and the government protected the old ways through steep tariffs on foreign textiles.
According to the 1,350 workers at the Bafnaz textile factory, one of its divisions, it was a rotten decision.When import restrictions were lifted a few years ago, and foreign textiles flooded Iran, the new managers hatched plans to sell off the decaying factory's plum site, and use the money to build a new plant.
Foreign textile mills, they hope, have cottoned on to the difference.
In a neighborhood of warehouses and foreign textile traders, Muslims come to a small mosque to pray.
The quickest beneficiaries are likely to be foreign textile and apparel manufacturers with plants in this country, such as Nike and the lingerie maker Triumph.
Michaela Platzer, the report's author, says that foreign textile manufacturers cited proximity to their customers, lower transportation costs, shorter delivery times and access to cheaper energy sources as the main reasons for opening textile plants in the region.
Take Prato, a beautiful town in Tuscany that grew rich on foreign trade in textiles during the Middle Ages and has the churches and paintings to show for it.
Since 1970, when it established an export-processing zone, its foreign sales of textiles and sugar have boomed and its per capita income is now the second highest in Africa.But the island's success is based, in part, on the preferential treatment its exports receive in EU and American markets.
The banking, insurance, telecommunications, and micro-credit industries are restricted to domestic investors, but Ethiopia has attracted significant foreign investment in textiles, leather, commercial agriculture and manufacturing.
As imports of cheaper foreign yarns and textile goods increased during the mid-20th century, Chadderton's textile sector declined to a halt; cotton spinning reduced dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s, and by 1997 only two mills were operational.
Tourism, a mainstay of the Nepali economy, has been hit hard, as have primary sources of foreign exchange like textile and carpet manufacturing.
