{"id":533,"date":"2026-08-31T09:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T13:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/?p=533"},"modified":"2026-09-03T11:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:30:27","slug":"chyangra-pashmina-as-nepals-flagship-export","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/chyangra-pashmina-as-nepals-flagship-export\/","title":{"rendered":"Pashmina as Nepal’s Flagship Export"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Impediments and Accelerants<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Seth Sicroff, PhD<\/strong>
Mountain Legacy International
Presented at the IGU Conference, Istanbul \u00b7 August 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This talk was adapted from a much longer article previously posted to this blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My primary interest in Nepal is mountain stewardship. So it may seem odd that I focus on pashmina, a textile industry centered in Kathmandu Valley. My premise, however, is that stewardship cannot be separated from economic opportunity: education, migration, tourism and trade shape both mountain landscapes and the resources available to protect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case the connection is especially direct. Nepal’s ambitious five-year pashmina strategy reaches from Kathmandu’s looms to the high mountain pastures: goats, grazing land and livelihoods at elevation. I will be using this strategy as a point of departure to look at impediments and accelerants affecting the pashmina sector – from landscape, goats and labor to production and markets – and then suggest a somewhat different way of thinking about its future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This November, Nepal is scheduled to graduate from the United Nations category of Least Developed Countries. Graduation is a big deal, but, as always, a cliff lurks beyond the diploma: Nepal will gain status but lose some preferential trade treatment. The pressure to boost exports has increased noticeably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this crunch, pashmina would seem the perfect parachute. A shawl weighing only a few hundred grams can represent substantial value. For a landlocked country dependent on air cargo – and on tourists with shrinking luggage allowances – that is an attractive export.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, Nepal adopted a National Pashmina Sector Export Strategy, developed with European Union support and technical assistance from the International Trade Centre. Nepal had exported about US$19 million worth of pashmina in 2021. The target was US$75 million by the end of 2026: nearly four times as much in five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pashmina may indeed be a good parachute, but this was asking it to perform more like a rocket. The strategy proposed more than selling additional products. Nepal’s modern pashmina industry had developed largely around cashmere yarn imported from China. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, fiber from Nepal’s own Chyangra goats was collected inefficiently, if at all. The strategy sought to bring more stages of the value chain into Nepal: increase domestic fiber production and collection, improve processing, testing and traceability, and compete internationally on a distinctive Nepali Chyangra Pashmina identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program has produced tangible results: farmer training, increased fiber collection and new processing infrastructure. But Nepal remains far short of the US$75 million target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The useful question is not simply whether the strategy succeeded or failed. It is: What had to be true for such a radical approach to be feasible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[C \u2014 MOUNTAIN \/ CHYANGRA \/ HERDERS]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, there had to be enough goats producing enough usable fiber. The number of goats afoot in Nepal is surprisingly uncertain. Estimates around the beginning of the strategy put the Chyangra population below 150,000. Dhan Prasad Lamichhane, a leading advocate for domestic Chyangra pashmina, suggests there may now be 500,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But goats are not fiber units. Chyangra are multipurpose animals, and at reported prices a year’s raw fiber is worth only a small fraction of the animal’s eventual sale value. Collecting more fiber from existing herds may add income without adding goats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expanding herds to meet an industrial target is a different proposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[D \u2014 GOAT SCALE]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At $40 wholesale, $75 million would mean about 1.9 million shawls. At two goats’ fiber per shawl, that’s 3.75 million goats. The assumptions are illustrative, but the scale of the stewardship question is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expanding herds requires adequate pasture – and people willing to tend animals in remote highlands when they have other opportunities. Pastoralists have alternatives. So do their children. Education, migration and alternative employment are not failures of development; they are part of development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lamichhane himself acknowledges the uncertainty. He writes that Nepal still needs proper studies of carrying capacity, available grazing land, labor requirements, herd management and the animal lifecycle “before setting realistic targets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New processing capacity can stimulate production, but it does not establish how far production can sustainably expand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is another question. Why is imported yarn necessarily a weakness? Nepal already has an established industry making excellent pashmina textiles from imported cashmere yarn. Domestic Chyangra fiber can augment mountain income and support distinctive, traceable products without replacing imported yarn. And if domestic fiber is scarce, scarcity itself can add value: limited editions, exclusivity, and a premium when customers value the source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[E \u2014 PASHMINA AS FLAGSHIP \/ BROADER TEXTILE ECOSYSTEM]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also room to think beyond the shawl – and even beyond pashmina itself. Pashmina can expand into knitwear, clothing, home textiles and blends. But it can also serve as a flagship for a broader Nepali textile economy – from embroidered wool, cotton, silk and hemp to modal and advanced functional fabrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point is not to prescribe the product mix. It is to establish Nepal as a source of quality and innovation in a conspicuous luxury product, and let that reputation open markets for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that brings us to another impediment. Nepal has little international recognition as a source of luxury textiles. Consumers know cashmere, Italian and Mongolian cashmere, and Kashmiri shawls. Nepal has to establish a place among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when Nepal sells through an international wholesaler, Nepal doesn’t control the shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone else decides how the product is described, what it sits beside and which<\/p>\n\n\n\n

attributes matter. Wholesale buyers also exert pressure on price, and price pressure can<\/p>\n\n\n\n

become pressure on quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[F \u2014 WHOLESALE VS. TOURIST DIRECT SALES]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Nepal already has another international market: consumers who come directly to the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

producer and carry their purchases home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nepal received about 1.15 million international tourists in 2024. At that level, average<\/p>\n\n\n\n

pashmina purchases of just $65 per visitor would equal the strategy’s entire $75 million<\/p>\n\n\n\n

export target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s an illustration, not a forecast. But the market is already there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Direct tourist sales can capture retail rather than wholesale value, reduce pressure to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sacrifice quality to price and give Nepal the opportunity to explain the product directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet shopping for pashmina can be surprisingly difficult: negotiable prices, unreliable<\/p>\n\n\n\n

labels, uncertain fiber claims and uneven product knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An uncertain customer is unlikely to buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transparent prices, reliable testing and labeling, knowledgeable salespeople, secure<\/p>\n\n\n\n

payment and dependable shipping could remove much of that friction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that distinction – between prescribing outcomes and removing friction – may be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nepal already has manufacturers, retailers, craftspeople and designers. They don’t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

necessarily need someone to tell them what to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give them better information, trustworthy testing, skills, connections and access to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

customers, and let them experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[G \u2014 PASHMINA STUDIO]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pashmina studio could let visitors handle materials, meet craftspeople, work with<\/p>\n\n\n\n

designers and customize textiles – including fitted clothing that is difficult to sell remotely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The product then leaves Nepal with a story attached: worn, shown and discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tourism can generate pashmina sales. But pashmina can also generate tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[QR \u2014 FINAL ECOSYSTEM \/ WEAVE]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings me back to impediments and accelerants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some impediments are physical: landscape, fiber supply and labor. Others are<\/p>\n\n\n\n

commercial or institutional: uncertain information, weak market recognition, difficult<\/p>\n\n\n\n

shopping and dependence on intermediaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accelerants need not be another set of instructions about what Nepal’s pashmina sector<\/p>\n\n\n\n

should become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can remove friction: reliable testing, better information, training, design exposure,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

trustworthy commerce and easier connections between producers and customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nepal already has goats, craftspeople, manufacturers, designers, tourists and markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the task is not to prescribe the value chain they should follow, but to give its<\/p>\n\n\n\n

participants better tools for discovering more valuable ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That might produce a larger pashmina sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But from the standpoint with which I began – mountain stewardship – the more important<\/p>\n\n\n\n

possibility is that it could produce greater economic value without requiring<\/p>\n\n\n\n

proportionately more goats, more grazing pressure, or more people to remain in the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

highlands simply to supply an industrial target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Impediments and Accelerants Seth Sicroff, PhDMountain Legacy InternationalPresented at the IGU Conference, Istanbul \u00b7 August 2026 This talk was adapted from a much longer article previously posted to this blog.   My primary interest in Nepal is mountain stewardship. So it may seem odd that I focus on pashmina, a textile industry centered in Kathmandu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pashmina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sunrise-pashmina.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}