A set of data underscores the weight of Ordos cashmere: nearly half of China's cashmere garment processing capacity, about 40% of global output, and Arbas cashmere protected by national geographical indication. On August 25, at the 2026 PH Value China International Knitting (Autumn/Winter) Expo held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, 15 local cashmere enterprises appeared as a unified pavilion, reflecting Ordos' clear path from 'China's Cashmere Capital' to 'World's Cashmere Capital'—no longer content with exporting raw materials, but aiming to export brands, design, and culture.
Resource Moat and Industrial Loop
Ordos' moat first comes from its non-replicable geographical endowment. Arbas cashmere is renowned for fineness, whiteness, and luster, having won international awards and national geographical indication protection. Local trade promotion officials have publicly emphasized that many places attempted to introduce breeding but failed due to mismatched latitude, humidity, and pasture conditions. This exclusivity of germplasm resources forms a natural barrier at the raw material end.
More critically, Ordos has built a complete loop from raw fleece collection, debairing, spinning, to garment manufacturing, forming an integrated 'pastoral-industrial-trade' structure. The city, led by flagship enterprises, has gathered over a hundred supporting companies, with processing capacity accounting for nearly half of the national total and almost 40% globally. For international buyers, this means completing all steps from raw material to finished product within one industrial cluster, reducing procurement costs and ensuring quality control. As local trade promotion officials put it, although clusters like Qinghe in Hebei are developed, their raw materials mostly rely on Ordos—source advantage determines bargaining power.
Pain Points and Breakthroughs in Brand Upgrade
Owning top-tier raw materials is just the starting point; added value is the key to victory. Ordos benchmarks against world-class clusters like Italy's, clearly recognizing its gap in brand premium and design soft power. To this end, the local government is implementing a 'Brand Value Breakthrough Action', aiming to build a brand export matrix led by flagship companies with tiered follow-ups.
Specific actions include hiring designers from France, Germany, and Italy to integrate prairie totems, felt embroidery techniques, and nomadic aesthetics into modern knitwear; during Paris Fashion Week 2024, over 20 enterprises held 'Ordos Fashion Day' at the Palais Brongniart; and promoting niche brands like Dongfeiyan and Palandi to reach overseas segments via cross-border e-commerce. These moves clearly aim to use design language to dispel the stereotype of 'raw material origin' and upgrade from 'warming the world' to 'fashioning the world'.
Smart manufacturing is also advancing in parallel. Molecular breeding protects germplasm resources, green dyeing technologies are spreading, and digital flexible manufacturing is compressing the cycle from design to delivery. For buyers, this means small-batch, multi-variety personalized orders become feasible, no longer constrained by traditional mass production models.
Exhibition Economy and Deep Global Market Cultivation
Exhibitions have become a window to test industrial upgrades. Since 2018, Ordos has been nurturing the China (Ordos) International Cashmere & Wool Exhibition; the eighth edition in July 2025 attracted enterprises from France, Italy, the UK, Japan, and others. This is the third time the Ordos pavilion participated in the PH Value Knitting Expo, with trade promotion officials saying 'results get better each year'.
Exhibitions bring not only orders but also updated business concepts. Companies like Shuangqi, Dongfeiyan, Palandi, and Abuluodi have established overseas channels in the US, France, Italy, and the UK. Next, Ordos plans to implement a 'Global Market Deep Cultivation Action', shifting from a broad-based exhibition approach to deep incubation in selected global fashion hubs like Paris and Milan, and leveraging platforms like the Osaka World Expo to promote integration of industry with culture and tourism.
This strategic shift from 'wide coverage' to 'deep rooting' reflects the inevitable logic of industrial upgrading: when raw materials and capacity are no longer scarce resources, channel deepening and brand mindshare become new competitive barriers. For foreign trade enterprises, this means the era of pure price competition is ending; deep binding with industrial clusters and co-incubating brands may be a more sustainable path.