Report on China's Sewing Equipment Exports: From Manufacturing Hub to Capability Exporter

YIWU, China, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the past two years, China's industrial sewing machine exports have performed particularly well. Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, is China's largest production and export base for industrial sewing equipment and is widely known as the "sewing equipment capital of China". Neighboring Yiwu, a global hub for small commodities, has also benefited from this growth, with sewing equipment exports gaining momentum. Yiwugo.com, the official website of the Yiwu Commodity Market, is the largest commodity wholesale market in the world. Data from Yiwugo confirms this trend. Over the past two years, bulk buyers from Africa and Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh have significantly increased their searches for and purchases of industrial sewing machines. Meanwhile, young people in Europe and the US are increasingly embracing Chinese-inspired lifestyles, and DIY fabric crafts are gaining popularity. As a result, demand for a range of home-use automatic sewing machines and mini portable sewing and embroidery machines has also climbed clearly.

Zhang Baoshun, founder of Yiwu Baochuang Sewing Equipment Co., Ltd., has over 20 years of experience in the production and R&D of industrial sewing machines for bulk orders. His brand Qiafeng has established a presence in markets around the world. According to Zhang, the company draws on professional technical expertise from both home and abroad for its R&D on automation units and intelligent industrial control systems. It also provides follow-up maintenance and equipment upgrades, giving bulk buyers greater confidence and peace of mind when making large-scale purchases. The company now holds more than 20 patents and over 100 software copyrights, underscoring its R&D capabilities.

Following the recent Canton Fair, a number of overseas buyers found Baochuang Sewing through Yiwugo. The company tailors production lines and production schedules to each client's specific requirements. It is currently in discussions with prospective customers to finalize order details. Preliminary estimates suggest that the company's overseas custom orders will increase by about 20% this year compared with last year.

Zhang noted that since 2024, changes in the global economic landscape and shifts in industrial layouts have prompted many apparel brands to relocate their production lines to countries and regions across Southeast Asia and Africa. Previously, through the Yiwu market and the Yiwugo platform, Baochuang had already become a supplier of industrial sewing machines to a number of well-known domestic and international brands including CK, ERKE and Puma. With the relocation of manufacturing to new regions over the past two years, local workers have often lacked the technical skills and productivity needed to meet manufacturers' demands to cut costs, raise efficiency and increase automation, which is exactly why Baochuang's near-unmanned industrial sewing machines have proven very popular in these markets. With these machines, a single worker can operate six machines simultaneously, while each sewing machine turns out more than twice the output of a traditional one. Baochuang's customized machines help workers achieve production targets more quickly and efficiently. Puma alone orders more than 100 of Baochuang's new industrial sewing machines each year, and the annual value of orders between the two companies is currently around RMB 4 million.

Through technological innovation, Baochuang has developed industrial sewing machine solutions that solve problems such as inconsistent product quality caused by manual operations, securing partnerships with factories supplying several major brands.

Unlike Baochuang's founder, Zhou Qiyun began his career as a shirtmaker before moving into technical work on sewing, and eventually established Yiwu Meizhen Sewing Equipment Company. Over 35 years, he has completed the shift from machine user to machine maker, which is precisely why he understands the practical challenges faced by sewing machine users. Drawing on this experience, the company has built a strong edge in modifying specialized sewing machines and in producing fully and semi-automatic conventional machines for a wide range of domestic and international markets.

Zhou said that since 2025, nearly 90% of the company's orders have come from overseas markets, with Africa recording the fastest growth. Many overseas customers first connected with Meizhen through trade shows and advertisements on Yiwugo. As more manufacturing operations set up in Africa, buyers there are increasingly purchasing a wide range of sewing equipment in bulk. In the Indonesian market, buyers are gradually upgrading from conventional sewing equipment to semi-automatic and fully automatic machines. Not long ago, Meizhen delivered a batch of sewing machines worth over RMB 5 million for an Indonesian government procurement project. As part of the project, the Indonesian government even sent four technical personnel to Meizhen for training in the daily operation and maintenance of the new machines.

Meizhen's technical expertise and after-sales services, including worker training, are key factors behind many customers' decisions to choose the company. In addition, the expertise of Zhou Qiyun and his technical team also enable Meizhen to offer a comprehensive range of sewing equipment and customize machines to meet specialized requirements. In one instance, an overseas handicraft workshop needed a sewing machine capable of producing headpieces and beaded chains. Under Zhou's leadership, the team quickly developed a specialized machine to meet the customer's needs. Impressed by the result, the customer signed an order worth nearly RMB 1 million on the spot.

The global economic landscape continues to undergo profound changes, reshaping trade flows, industrial footprints and consumer preferences. Yet the merchants on Yiwugo and in the Yiwu market remain firmly rooted in their mission: delivering small commodities and small equipment that offer the best-value and meet buyers' needs to customers all over the world. This steadfastness is not about resisting change. Rather, it reflects a simple yet enduring conviction: service must stay one step ahead of customer needs, and value is created when people work together. The world will become a place of greater opportunity and possibility because of a collaboration in which each party plays to its strengths and creates value together. Perhaps this is one of the most meaningful aspects of China's sewing industry expanding onto the global stage.

SOURCE Yiwugo.com