This yarn is drawn under tension through several guides and eventually wound onto reels. The yarn is dried, packed according to quality and is now raw silk ready for marketing. The worn and withered body of what was intended to become the wondrous flying creature slips silently away. World silk production has roughly doubled during the last 30 years in spite of the availability of man-made fibres. China and Japan have been the main silk producers, together manufacturing more than half of the world production each year.
Chinese silk is highly prized throughout the world.
Since 1949 silk making methods have been modernized and silk is of better quality. World silk production in 1940 was 59 million kg. By 1950 it had dropped to 19 million kg. By the mid-1980s it had climbed to about 68 million kg.