Mongolian Cashmere

Cashmere is light, soft and warm, and with its luxurious feeling it is one of the most expensive materials in the world.  Mongolian cashmere is not world famous, but Mongolia is the world’s second largest producer of cashmere after China.  To qualify as cashmere, animal hair must be under 19 microns thick. Mongolian Cashmere is amongst the very finest in the world, at around 14.5 microns thick.  Scottish Cashmere is at 16-17 microns, and Australian Cashmere measures 18.5 microns. The reason is that goats in Mongolia who produce the hair are raised at high altitude, almost 1800m above sea level.

Mongolian cashmere is ecologically produced as the goats are pastured in the vast steppes of Mongolia without chemicals.  Every spring Mongolian herders comb the hairs from each goat by hand (as opposed to machine clipping and later sorting by their Chinese counterparts) taking up to three days to comb out the very finest hairs under the nape of the neck.

In Ulaanbaatar in 1981 the first Mongolian cashmere company Gobi started production. Until the late 1990s only Gobi produced and exported high quality Mongolian cashmere products.  Now several big companies produce cashmere garments such as Buyan, Goyo, Altai Cashmere, Cashmere Concept and Evseg.  There are many small enterprises too.

Gobi and Goyo are the biggest producers of cashmere products in Mongolia.  Gobi is the fifth largest cashmere production company in the world. Every year it buys 250 to 300 tonnes of raw cashmere and exports 60% of its products to Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.  Goyo, established in 1993, exports its products to Europe and North America.  For the first time in the Mongolian cashmere industry, Goyo started making a children’s collection.

Mongolian cashmere companies have already opened their shops in many European countries.  In Portugal, Goyo-Ya shop in Cascais sells Goyo and Gobi products.