<P> Prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, Mughal India was the most important manufacturing center in world trade, producing about 25% of the world's industrial output, with the Mughal Bengal province dominant in the textile manufacturing industry . Real wages in 18th century southern India were also comparable to those in southern England at the time . In early modern Europe, there was significant demand for textiles from Mughal India, including cotton textiles and silk products . European fashion, for example, became increasingly dependent on Mughal Indian textiles and silks . In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Mughal India accounted for 95% of British imports from Asia . </P> <P> During the second half of the 17th century, the newly established factories of the East India Company (EIC) in South Asia started to produce finished cotton goods in quantity for the UK market . The imported Calico and chintz garments competed with, and acted as a substitute for indigenous wool and the linen produce, resulting in local weavers, spinners, dyers, shepherds and farmers petitioning their MP's and in turn the United Kingdom government for a ban on the importation, and later the sale of woven cotton goods . Which they eventually achieved via the 1700 and 1721 Calico Acts . The acts banned the importation and later the sale of finished pure cotton produce, but did not restrict the importation of raw cotton, or sale or production of Fustian . </P> <P> The exemption of raw cotton saw two thousand bales of cotton being imported annually, from Asia and the Americas, and forming the basis of a new indigenous industry, initially producing Fustian for the domestic market, though more importantly triggering the development of a series of mechanised spinning and weaving technologies, to process the material . This mechanised production was concentrated in new cotton mills, which slowly expanded till by the beginning of the 1770s seven thousand bales of cotton were imported annually, and pressure was put on Parliament, by the new mill owners, to remove the prohibition on the production and sale of pure cotton cloth, as they wished to compete with the EIC imports . </P> <P> Indian cotton textiles, particularly those from Bengal, continued to maintain a competitive advantage up until the 19th century . In order to compete with India, Britain invested in labour - saving technical progress, while implementing protectionist policies such as bans and tariffs to restrict Indian imports . At the same time, the EIC's rule in India contributed to its deindustrialization, opening up a new market for British goods, while the capital amassed from Bengal after its 1757 conquest was used to invest in British industries such as textile manufacturing and greatly increase British wealth, contributing to Britain's Industrial Revolution . Britain eventually surpassed India as the world's leading cotton textile manufacturer in the 19th century . </P>

Where was cotton imported from during the industrial revolution