Qinghe Cashmere: A Practical Sourcing Guide for International Buyers

Where you are buying from

Qinghe County is in Xingtai, in southern Hebei Province. It grew from a wool and cashmere trading town into one of China's main cashmere processing and knitwear concentrations, and it remains unusual among textile clusters for being vertically deep: raw fibre sorting, dehairing, spinning, dyeing, knitting and finishing all happen locally.

That vertical depth is what makes Qinghe interesting to a buyer. Cashmere is a fibre where the value is concentrated in processing — how much guard hair is removed, how the fibre is separated by length, and how gently it is handled — and in Qinghe you can buy at several different points in that chain rather than only buying finished sweaters.

What the cluster actually makes

• Dehaired cashmere (raw and scoured) — graded by micron and fibre length.
• Cashmere yarn — worsted and woollen, single and plied, dyed or undyed, in a range of counts.
• Cashmere knitwear — sweaters, cardigans, scarves, hats, gloves, socks and accessories.
• Cashmere blends — with wool, silk, cotton, viscose or nylon, which is a large and legitimate part of the market provided the blend is declared.
• Recycled and regenerated cashmere — a growing segment with its own price and disclosure expectations.

The buyer's first decision is where in the chain to buy. Yarn gives you control over the finished garment but requires you to manage knitting elsewhere. Finished knitwear is simpler but leaves fibre quality largely in the supplier's hands — which is why testing matters so much in this category.

Fibre specifications that actually matter

Cashmere is priced on three measurable properties:

1. Fibre diameter (micron) — the single biggest price driver. Finer is more expensive, and the difference between grades is not visible to the eye.
2. Fibre length — longer fibre spins into a stronger, less pilling yarn. Short fibre is cheaper and shows up later as pilling.
3. Guard hair content / dehairing ratio — how cleanly the coarse hair was removed.

For yarn, add count, twist, and evenness. For finished goods, add gauge, weight per piece, and the declared blend percentage.

Reading a specification properly

A complete RFQ states:

1. Stage of supply — fibre, yarn or finished garment.
2. Fibre composition — with percentages, and whether blends are acceptable.
3. Micron range and method of measurement.
4. Fibre length range.
5. Yarn count and ply, if yarn.
6. Colour — Pantone reference or lab dip, and whether dyeing is required.
7. Garment specifications — size chart, gauge, piece weight, trims, labelling.
8. Testing requirements — fibre content, micron, and any restricted substances testing.
9. Labelling and packaging — content labels, care labels, polybag or box.
10. Quantity, size breakdown and delivery window.

Price drivers and the honest-use problem

Raw cashmere price moves with the Mongolian and Inner Mongolia harvest, and it is genuinely volatile. Processing adds cost in proportion to how fine and how long the fibre must be.

The bigger commercial risk is substitution. Because finer grades and coarser grades look similar in a finished garment, there is a persistent incentive to deliver a cheaper fibre than ordered. The defence is testing: commission fibre content and micron testing on receipt from a laboratory that is not nominated by the supplier, and do it on every shipment, not just the first. The cost is small relative to the value of a container of cashmere.

MOQ in this cluster is friendlier than in many textile categories. Yarn can be bought in modest quantities, and knitwear factories will often run small orders for a new buyer. Colour work is the constraint — custom dyeing has a minimum batch, so a multi-colour order may be cheaper in a single base colour with local dyeing than in several custom shades.

How to vet a supplier

Ask to see the dehairing and spinning equipment if you are buying fibre or yarn; a genuine vertical supplier can show you the line. For knitwear, ask which yarn supplier they use and whether they can buy to your specification rather than theirs.

Request a lab dip and a pre-production sample before bulk. In knitwear, the sample is where gauge, hand-feel and shrinkage are settled, and it is far cheaper to argue about at sample stage than after production.

Logistics and lead times

Yarn with stock colours can ship quickly; custom dyeing adds roughly one to three weeks. Knitwear sampling plus production typically runs four to eight weeks depending on gauge and order size, with peak-season congestion in the months before winter. Qinghe ships via Tianjin Port or by air for higher-value goods. Cashmere is a high-value, low-volume fibre, so air freight is more viable here than in most textile categories.

Common pitfalls

• Buying on hand-feel alone without a micron test.
• Accepting a blend without a written percentage.
• Testing only the first shipment.
• Ordering multiple custom colours without checking dye batch minimums.
• Ignoring pilling performance, which relates to fibre length and shows up after wear.

Getting quotes

Hebei Neijuan Network (河北内卷网) lists cashmere fibre, yarn and knitwear suppliers, in-stock specifications and public quotations from Qinghe and other Hebei textile clusters, with factory contact details shown openly. Use the product directory to filter by category and region, and request quotations from several suppliers before committing to a fibre grade.