The Honghe knitwear industrial belt in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, with annual transactions exceeding RMB 20 billion and tens of thousands of business entities, is attempting to answer a common industry puzzle: how can a traditional specialized market truly integrate into global supply chains without abandoning its manufacturing roots? The answer proposed at the 2026 Honghe Knitwear Season is a 4,000-square-meter physical platform that consolidates fragmented domestic and foreign trade services.
Event Background
Located on the third floor of Honghe Zhongchuang Market, the new Integrated Domestic-Foreign Trade Service Center builds on two years of experience during which the local Maoshanpai cross-border e-commerce platform helped over 200 companies explore more than ten overseas markets and attracted nearly 1,000 foreign buyers. However, sporadic overseas trips differ from systematic export expansion, which requires a complete service chain.
The center is designed to fill that gap. It is divided into four functional sections: a service section with an in-house R&D center and third-party quality inspection, plus customs declaration, logistics, tax, and AR digital tools; a trade section featuring a 1,200-square-meter product selection area organized by target markets such as Japan/Korea, Middle East, South America, and Russia-Europe-Central Asia; a brand section with intellectual property guidance and overseas risk warning mechanisms; and an incubation section offering tiered support for individual workshops, small businesses, and larger enterprises.
Notably, the opening ceremony also saw two rounds of strategic cooperation signings on knitwear export and international logistics. Combined with the operational international cargo routes of Jiaxing Nanhu Airport and the accelerating construction of the airport new city, Honghe is converting its airport-adjacent location from a geographic advantage into order delivery efficiency. For buyers, this means that processes previously requiring separate contacts with freight forwarders, inspection agencies, and customs brokers could now be completed under one roof.
Industry Impact
Honghe's choice is not isolated. An expert from the Ministry of Commerce noted that specialized markets have evolved from simple trading venues into full-chain industrial service complexes, with operational logic shifting from "produce and sell" to "consumer demand guiding upstream production." This assessment aligns with the trade section's design, where product selection by overseas markets essentially uses end-user demand to drive product development among local enterprises.
A deeper transformation is happening at the enterprise level. Previously, Honghe knitwear relied heavily on OEM processing, which yielded thin margins and vulnerability to order fluctuations. Now, the center encourages companies to shift from selling products to selling brands, while intellectual property warnings reduce compliance risks in overseas markets—directly impacting factories' profit structures and bargaining power. For small businesses long dependent on domestic trade, the incubation section's digital transformation support may determine whether they can handle small-batch, quick-response overseas orders.
Industry observers also note that the suggestion from a China National Textile and Apparel Council official to "leverage the airport hub to unblock customs, logistics, and overseas warehousing" outlines a replicable upgrade path for Honghe. If this chain runs smoothly, Honghe's knitwear exports could expand from traditional Western markets to emerging regions like the Middle East and South America, while regional brand premiums may offset some tariff and logistics cost pressures.
Practical Recommendations
For Buyers - Prioritize the overseas product selection area in the trade section to compare samples and prices by target market, shortening the traditional cycle of trade shows, factory audits, and sampling. - Leverage the center's third-party quality inspection and customs declaration services to front-load inspection and order tracking, reducing hidden costs in cross-border procurement.
For Foreign Trade Enterprises - Use the intellectual property guidance station to check trademark and design patent risks in target markets in advance, avoiding profit-eroding infringement disputes. - Recalculate delivery cycles based on airport logistics, considering making some air freight orders regular rather than urgent, to expand high-value-added quick-response categories.
The Honghe sample demonstrates that when an industrial belt has a solid manufacturing base, what it lacks is not orders but systematic services that turn orders into sustainable business. Whether the center functions smoothly will depend on ongoing coordination of stakeholder interests and the depth of digital tool implementation. But at least it offers a tangible reference model for similar markets nationwide.