About 200 kilometers west of Shanghai, in the Changzhou Economic Development Zone – a major manufacturing center in the Yangtze Delta – lies a small town called Henglin. With an area of just 46 square kilometers, this city now supplies the majority of China's laminate flooring exports. Every day, over 150 containers of floor coverings and furnishings are shipped from here all over the world and find their way into countless living rooms in American and European households.
In the quality control workshop of Jiangsu Belle Decoration Material Co., Ltd. Workers conduct final performance tests on a batch of PVC flooring manufactured using environmentally friendly processes. These floors will soon be packed and shipped to the port of Hamburg. A few miles away, workers at Zhongtao Home Furnishing are busy packaging stylish and novel steel and wood mobile sideboards – products that will be delivered directly to American consumers via the Amazon platform.
Henglin's history began in the 1980s, when it was just a collection of small workshops producing computer tables. Local entrepreneur Yao Zhongxing remembers: “Back then, we didn't even know what laminate flooring was. We just focused on making every computer desk good.”
A turning point came at the end of the 1990s. Laminate flooring from Germany and Belgium entered the Chinese market, and the high price alerted local entrepreneurs to an opportunity. “At that time, imported laminate floors cost over 300 yuan per square meter, while solid wood floors only cost about 100 yuan,” said a Belle Flooring representative. “We recognized that this market has great potential.”
In 1999, Henglin established its first flooring production line. Today, the city has been recognized as the “Chinese Laminate Flooring Capital” by the China Forestry Industry Association and has developed a complete industrial ecosystem. Over 500 manufacturing companies and more than 200 supporting companies are bundled here and form an efficient and collaborative production network that includes everything from basic material supply and finished product processing to mold making and packaging logistics.
“Quality and technological innovation are the key to our success in the international market,” said a local entrepreneur. “We invest over 3% of our annual turnover in research and development and have established a quality control system that complies with both the EU REACH regulation and US CARB certification.”
At the Henglin cross-border e-commerce industrial park, workers from Zhongtao Home Furnishing prepare goods for Black Friday. Company manager Chen Jialin points to the production line and says, “We have improved the product design and functionality based on the preferences of European consumers. Now our electric height adjustable desks are very popular in the American market.”
The local government has played a supporting role in this process. Mao Chunsong, head of the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department of Changzhou Economic Development Zone, said: “We not only help companies participate in trade fairs such as the Cologne International Furniture Fair, but also have set up a national-level quality control center to ensure that products meet international standards.”
Today, Henglin's product range has expanded from traditional flooring to bespoke furniture for the whole home. Official statistics show that the total output value of the city's flooring industry has stabilized at a level of 20 billion yuan in recent years. When you walk into a factory, you can see the production lines bustling with activity for next season's foreign orders. Behind this busy scene lies a continually growing share of the global market. Even more impressive is their evolution from market chasers to rule makers – several local companies have become contributors to the formulation of international standards for the flooring industry, marking a role shift from “manufacturing” to “standard setting”. “Every evening when I see the products we make being loaded onto trucks heading to Hamburg, Los Angeles and beyond, I know that this little place called Henglin is now deeply connected to the world through quality and innovation,” concluded a local entrepreneur.
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