Annual trade volume exceeding 20 billion yuan and tens of thousands of business entities—this is the scorecard of Honghe knitwear industry in Jiaxing, Zhejiang. Yet behind the numbers, a deeper transformation is unfolding: the newly launched integrated domestic-foreign trade service center aims to channel fragmented workshop-style production into standardized, branded global pathways. For an industrial cluster long reliant on low-margin, high-volume sales, this step signifies a substantive leap from selling products to selling brands.
New Fulcrum for the Industrial Cluster
Honghe's transformation is not built from scratch. Over the past two years, the local cross-border e-commerce platform "Mao Shan Pai" has organized over 200 enterprises to explore markets in more than ten countries, attracting nearly 1,000 overseas buyers to visit Honghe. The new service center serves as the offline carrier of this online platform—within its 4,000-square-meter space, four functional sections are established: service, trade, brand, and incubation. The 1,200-square-meter foreign trade selection center is divided into zones for target markets such as Japan/Korea, Middle East, South America, and Russia/Europe/Central Asia, enabling overseas buyers to select products efficiently.
This combination of "online lead generation + offline experience" directly addresses the pain points of foreign trade for industrial clusters: small and medium enterprises lack overseas channels, and individual efforts struggle to overcome trust barriers. By integrating third-party quality inspection, customs brokerage, logistics, and AR digital tools, the center effectively packages foreign trade services as "infrastructure," reducing the hidden costs of going global. For buyers, the centralized selection center shortens comparison and inspection cycles, essentially restructuring transaction efficiency.
Airport Advantages and Dual-Circulation Logic
Honghe's locational dividends are being revalued. The smooth operation of international cargo routes at Jiaxing Nanhu Airport and the accelerated construction of the Airport New City have endowed the knitwear industry with the scarce variable of "airport proximity." Traditional knitwear exports rely on sea freight, which is slow and less responsive; with improved air cargo channels, small-batch, quick-response, and high-value-added orders become feasible. This aligns perfectly with the "flexible manufacturing" promoted by the service center—when production can swiftly respond to overseas fashion trends, the cluster avoids the risks of large inventory backlogs.
A deeper change lies in the reversal of industrial operation logic. Ren Xingzhou, a special expert in domestic trade appointed by the Ministry of Commerce, noted during the event that professional markets are shifting from "produce what you sell" to "consumer demand guides upstream production." This means Honghe knitwear is no longer just a processing workshop taking orders; it must become a node connecting domestic and international consumer demand. The incubation section of the service center has already laid out plans: individual workshops receive policy guidance, small and micro enterprises get digital transformation support, and larger enterprises are guided toward global expansion. This tiered cultivation approach essentially aims to build a ladder from "hidden champions" to "global brands."
From "Involution" to "External Expansion"
Notably, the opening ceremony also witnessed two rounds of strategic cooperation signings for knitwear overseas expansion and international logistics channels. The signal is clear: in the context of divergent domestic and international demand and rising trade barriers, industrial clusters need to stabilize their domestic base while opening new growth avenues overseas. Xu Jianhua, chairman of the Circulation Branch of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, proposed three directions—deepening domestic-foreign trade integration, strengthening digital technology empowerment, and promoting professional markets to upgrade into industrial empowerment platforms. This essentially outlines an "anti-involution" roadmap for Honghe.
For buyers and foreign trade enterprises, Honghe's exploration offers a lens: when traditional knitwear distribution centers begin arming themselves with digital tools and redefining products with a branding mindset, their supply chain responsiveness and added value will change. Ultimately, such industrial cluster upgrades will transmit effects on procurement costs, delivery times, and quality stability.