With annual transaction volume exceeding RMB 20 billion and tens of thousands of business entities, the Honghe knitwear industry in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, is attempting to break the export deadlock through a new service system. The integrated domestic-foreign trade service center launched at the 2026 Honghe Knitwear Season is not a simple expansion of space, but a compression of R&D, quality inspection, customs clearance, logistics, and brand incubation into one physical location, lowering the threshold for SMEs to reach overseas markets.
Background
Honghe's knitwear industry has a 50-year history, but its export path has long relied on intermediaries, leaving companies with thin margins and weak pricing power. The newly launched service center is located on the third floor of Zhongchuang Market, covering about 4,000 square meters, with a 1,200-square-meter foreign trade selection area divided into zones for Japan/Korea, Middle East, South America, and Russia/Europe/Central Asia, allowing overseas buyers to select products on-site by market. This signals Honghe's attempt to internalize selection functions previously scattered among trading companies and take control of channel power.
More notably, the center has established an in-house product R&D center, introduced third-party quality inspection agencies, and equipped AR digital tools. For knitwear companies long accustomed to OEM processing, R&D and quality inspection are precisely the weak links in value addition. By sharing these resources, the center dilutes individual costs, essentially converting the cluster's scale advantage into quality advantage, helping companies escape pure price competition.
Industry Impact
From an industry perspective, Honghe's move aligns with two critical trends. First, the smooth operation of Jiaxing Nanhu Airport's international cargo routes and the accelerated construction of the Airport New City are releasing locational advantages, providing more flexible logistics channels for seasonal knitwear—air freight shortens delivery cycles, making small-batch, quick-response production feasible. Second, as domestic trade expert Ren Xingzhou noted, specialized markets are shifting from 'produce-and-sell' to 'consumer demand directing upstream production.' The selection zones and overseas buyer matching mechanisms at Honghe's service center are essentially building a demand feedback loop.
For local enterprises, the tiered incubation system is thoughtfully designed: individual workshops first receive policy guidance, SMEs get digital transformation support, and larger companies are guided toward global expansion. This tiered upgrade path avoids the resource misallocation of a one-size-fits-all approach. Previously, the Maoshanpai cross-border e-commerce platform organized over 200 enterprises to explore markets in more than ten countries, attracting nearly 1,000 overseas buyers to Honghe, indicating early exploration has yielded results. The service center's launch now institutionalizes these scattered overseas efforts into a permanent infrastructure.
However, whether Honghe's model can be replicated depends on two variables: whether regional brands can truly establish IP protection mechanisms to prevent overseas trademark squatting and low-price counterfeiting from eroding profits, and whether digital tools are actually applied in production rather than remaining at the display level. Xu Jianhua, director of the China Textile Industry Federation's Circulation Branch, proposed the direction of a 'modern industry empowerment platform,' implying that specialized markets must shift from rent-collection to service-sharing models—a severe test of operators' resource integration capabilities.