This is a perfectly acceptable and commonly used phrase in English.
You could use it when discussing the development of a particular industry, for example, "The food industry was started in the 1990s as a response to changing consumer habits."
Development of the textile and hosiery industry was started about 1900 by two German technicians, Ferdinand Thun and Henry Janssen, who installed the first braiding and knitting machine in the country.
The research that led to the establishment of the industry was started in the 1890s by Mikimoto Kōkichi, who, after long experimentation, concluded that a very small mother-of-pearl bead introduced into the mollusk's tissue was the most successful stimulant to pearl production.
But can sub-Saharan Africa's garment trade survive competition from Asia?Lesotho's modern textile industry was started in the late 1980s by foreign investors who wanted to avoid sanctions imposed on South Africa, but were keen to use good South African roads and ports to export their products.
"When this industry was started in the 30's and 40's, it was never thought to be that you had to make money -- it was all about finding people a decent place to live," said Frederick R. Murphy, executive director of the Syracuse Housing Authority.
Mr. Duncan said the genomics industry was starting to sort itself into four broad camps.
The occasion symbolized the shared determination of Bush appointees to suspend adult supervision just as the financial industry was starting to run wild.
But women have long played significant roles in film production, especially when the industry was starting out and before movies became big business.
Those figures are down more than 70 percent from the levels of five years earlier, when the economy was about to enter recession and the subprime mortgage industry was starting to implode.
Tim Sr .was a car salesman, but his career began "at the beginning of the end of the economy in the Flint area," as he put it, when the American auto industry was starting its long decline.
He said that after a tough time during the economic downturn, the signs were that the house building industry was starting to move again.
In the 1980s, as the wireless industry was starting up, the FCC artificially limited service in each market to a duopoly, typically the local phone company and one outsider.
