The Honghe sweater industrial belt in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, with annual transactions exceeding 20 billion yuan and tens of thousands of business entities, is undergoing a deep transformation from low-price, high-volume to a dual-circulation model integrating domestic and foreign trade. The recent launch of the Honghe Sweater Integrated Domestic-Foreign Trade Service Center, along with two rounds of overseas expansion and international logistics agreements, signals that this five-decade-old cluster is betting on airport economy and digital services for growth.
Background
Honghe's shift is not without foundation. The local industry has a strong base, with products exported to many countries, but has long relied on traditional wholesale and OEM exports with limited added value. With the stable operation of international cargo routes at Jiaxing Nanhu Airport and the accelerated development of the Airport New City, Honghe has gained a rare airport-adjacent advantage—critical for time-sensitive fashion categories, meaning shorter lead times and stronger flexible supply chain capabilities.
The newly launched service center, located on the third floor of Zhongchuang Market, covers about 4,000 square meters and serves as the offline extension of the Maoshanpai cross-border e-commerce platform. Over the past two years, the platform has organized more than 200 local enterprises to explore markets in over a dozen countries and attracted nearly 1,000 overseas buyers to visit Honghe. The center operates through four functional sections: services, trade, branding, and incubation. The trade section features a 1,200-square-meter product selection center divided into zones for Japan/Korea, Middle East, South America, Russia-Europe-Central Asia, etc., allowing overseas buyers to select products precisely on-site.
Industry Impact
For buyers, this zoned selection model directly reduces the trial-and-error cost of cross-border procurement. Previously, overseas buyers had to visit multiple factories to compare styles; now they can complete targeted screening in a single space. With an in-house product R&D center and third-party quality inspection agencies, procurement efficiency and quality control are simultaneously enhanced. More importantly, the introduction of AR digital empowerment tools and IP guidance stations is pushing enterprises to shift from selling products to selling brands—meaning buyers will face suppliers with design premiums and compliance protection rather than homogeneous white-label goods.
Internally, the incubation section builds a tiered cultivation system: individual workshops receive policy guidance, small and micro enterprises get digital transformation support, and larger enterprises are guided toward global expansion. This tiered upgrade path essentially alleviates the chronic low-price involution within the cluster. Ren Xingzhou, a domestic trade expert from the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out the direction: professional markets are upgrading from single trading venues to full-chain industrial service complexes, with operational logic shifting from "produce-what-you-circulate" to "consumption-side reverse guidance for upstream production." Honghe's move is a practical attempt to implement this logic.
The release of airport advantages also changes the logistics foundation of foreign trade. Regular international cargo flights enable high-value sweaters to reach overseas terminals faster. Coupled with the international logistics channel cooperation signed this time, customs clearance and overseas warehousing are expected to be further streamlined. For foreign trade enterprises, this means they can now handle more small-batch, quick-response urgent orders—exactly the service capability most valued by cross-border e-commerce and brand clients.