Gobi traces back to a 1976 UN Industrial Development Organization pilot plant for processing Mongolian goat cashmere and camel wool, which grew into a full-scale factory in Ulaanbaatar after Japan contributed a 5-billion-yen grant the following year. The result, the state-owned Gobi Joint Stock Company, opened on September 5, 1981 as Mongolia's first cashmere-processing plant, named for the desert where most of its raw material is sourced. It was privatized in 2007 and now runs its own stores in Berlin and Düsseldorf alongside 62 franchise locations worldwide.