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, 21:30, 10 July 2014
*''Japanese'': 糸割符 ''(ito wappu)''
The ''itowappu'' system was a system in which a guild of [[Kyoto]], [[Sakai]], and [[Osaka]]-based textile merchants was granted a monopoly on the domestic sale of Chinese [[silk]] imported by [[VOC|Dutch]] and [[Chinese in Nagasaki|Chinese]] merchants in [[Nagasaki]]. The system was implemented by the [[Tokugawa shogunate]] in the 17th century in efforts to better manage the silk market.
The system was put into place in [[1604]], and abolished in [[1655]], after which trade in silk returned to being free. The competition of a free market, however, drove prices up, aggravating the problem the shogunate was seeking to solve: namely, that the shogunate desired to see more silk come into the country, and less [[silver]] flow out. Meanwhile, in the intervening time, Chinese and Dutch merchants were permitted entry into the monopoly-holding guild in [[1631]] and [[1641]] respectively.
The system was revived in [[1685]]...
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==References==
*Robert Hellyer, ''Defining Engagement'', Harvard University Press (2009), 52.
[[Category:Edo Period]]
[[Category:Economics]]