The Honghe knitwear industry in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, with annual transactions exceeding 20 billion yuan, is attempting to answer a long-standing question for China's specialized markets: how to turn domestic and foreign trade from parallel lines into a two-way cycle. The launch of the Honghe Knitwear Integrated Domestic-Foreign Trade Service Center in early September provides a concrete answer—not a simple physical space, but a service system embedded in the industrial cluster, reflecting a broader trend of specialized markets evolving from trading hubs to industrial empowerment platforms.
Background
With five decades of history, Honghe's knitwear industry hosts tens of thousands of business entities, with products sold globally. What makes this event particularly significant is the maturation of two external conditions: the stable operation of international cargo routes at Jiaxing Nanhu Airport and the accelerated construction of the Airport New City. The release of airport-adjacent location advantages means that seasonal products like knitwear can respond faster to overseas orders, providing a logistics foundation for domestic-foreign trade integration.
The newly launched service center, located on the third floor of Honghe Zhongchuang Market, covers approximately 4,000 square meters and serves as the offline carrier 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 ten countries and attracted nearly a thousand overseas buyers to Honghe. These figures indicate that Honghe's overseas expansion is not starting from scratch but has built initial customer networks and trust, and the service center is a key step in systematizing scattered efforts.
Industrial Impact
The design of the center's four functional sectors addresses three core pain points for knitwear enterprises going global. The service sector, which introduces third-party quality inspection, customs declaration, logistics, and financial services, means small workshops no longer need to navigate compliance processes alone, significantly reducing trial costs. The trade sector's 1,200-square-meter product selection center is divided by target markets such as Japan/Korea, Middle East, South America, and Russia-Europe-Central Asia. Buyers should note that this display method requires enterprises to possess rapid sampling and small-batch production capabilities; otherwise, they may struggle to match overseas buyers' selection pace.
The overseas intellectual property risk warning mechanism in the brand sector provides a necessary defense for enterprises long reliant on OEM. Many factories have suffered from trademark squatting in the past; now with regional public brand endorsement, the shift from selling products to selling brands gains institutional support. The incubation sector's tiered cultivation system clarifies upgrade paths for enterprises of different sizes—individual workshops first learn policies, small enterprises undergo digital transformation, and larger ones plan globalization—avoiding resource misallocation.
Ren Xingzhou, a specially appointed expert in domestic trade at the Ministry of Commerce, offers a judgment worth industry attention: the operational logic of specialized markets is shifting from "produce-what, circulate-what, consume-what" to "consumption guiding upstream production in reverse." This means buyers are no longer passive takers; their order data will directly influence factories' product development. For Honghe, whether domestic consumption insights can effectively transmit to foreign trade product selection will be the litmus test for the center's effectiveness.
Practical Recommendations
For Buyers - Pay close attention to the overseas product selection center; when visiting, compare version and craftsmanship requirements across different markets like Japan/Korea and the Middle East to avoid using a single domestic standard for overseas orders. - Utilize the center's third-party inspection and logistics support to move quality checks and customs declaration upstream to the production site, shortening supply chain cycles, especially for small-batch, fast-reorder cross-border e-commerce orders.
For Foreign Trade Enterprises - Prioritize integrating into the overseas IP risk warning mechanism to check trademark registrations in target markets before signing contracts, preventing infringement disputes. - Leverage the incubation sector's digital transformation support to adopt AI design and digital marketing tools to meet the rapid response requirements of flexible orders.
Honghe's attempt essentially seeks a more efficient overseas channel for China's surplus garment production capacity. Whether the center can truly break down domestic-foreign trade barriers depends on whether enterprises perceive a substantial reduction in transaction costs during subsequent operations—after all, no matter how impressive the platform, if orders do not increase, it remains just a showroom for factories.