The Honghe knitwear industry in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, with annual transactions exceeding 20 billion yuan and tens of thousands of market players, is now piloting an integrated domestic-foreign trade path anchored on airport proximity, digital tools, and branding. The opening of the Integrated Service Center during the 2026 Honghe Knitwear Season marks a shift from merely selling products to offering brands and services. For similar specialized markets nationwide, this experiment carries significant reference value.
Background
Honghe's upgrade rests on two key facts: its massive industrial scale and the maturing advantage of its airport-adjacent location. Public data shows annual market transactions exceed 20 billion yuan, with products exported to many countries. As Jiaxing Nanhu Airport's international cargo routes operate and the airport city accelerates, Honghe's conditions for leaping from a traditional domestic distribution hub to an international circulation node are ripening.
The newly launched service center is located on the third floor of Honghe Zhongchuang Market, covering about 4,000 square meters. It serves as the offline carrier of the cross-border e-commerce platform 'Mao Shan Pai.' Over the past two years, this platform has organized more than 200 local enterprises to explore over ten countries and attracted nearly 1,000 overseas buyers to Honghe. The center is structured into four functional sections: service, trade, branding, and incubation. The trade section features a 1,200-square-meter selection center, divided into zones for Japan/Korea, the Middle East, South America, and Russia-Europe-Central Asia, facilitating precise sourcing for overseas clients.
Notably, the center adds product R&D, third-party quality inspection, AR digital tools, and overseas IP risk warnings to traditional trade services. This indicates an effort to consolidate previously scattered capabilities into a public service platform, lowering entry barriers and risks for SMEs.
Industry Impact
Honghe's move reflects the ongoing functional transformation of specialized markets in China. Ren Xingzhou, a domestic trade expert at the Ministry of Commerce, aptly noted that specialized markets have evolved from single trading venues into full-chain industrial service complexes, with logic shifting from 'produce-distribute-consume' to 'consumption guiding upstream production.' For buyers, this means more efficient sourcing and assured quality; for factories, it demands rapid response and digital design capabilities.
From a competitive cluster perspective, Honghe is pursuing a path of differentiated breakthrough. Compared to mature apparel clusters like Guangzhou or Hangzhou, Honghe holds a vertical advantage in knitwear; against similar knitwear origins like Qinghe in Hebei, its airport logistics and cross-border e-commerce practices create distinct competitiveness. Xu Jianhua, director of the Circulation Branch of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, explicitly pointed to leveraging airport hub advantages to streamline customs, logistics, and overseas warehousing.
However, transformation takes time. Honghe's industry has long been dominated by small workshops and micro-enterprises, with low-price homogenized competition still a primary issue. The incubation section's tiered system—from workshops to micro-enterprises to larger firms—is promising, but its success hinges on the actual adoption of digital tools and the market recognition of the regional public brand. External uncertainties, such as logistics cost volatility and changing trade policies in target markets, also demand higher risk resilience.