From a Changzhou Town to the World’s Living Rooms:A Visit to the Hidden Champion of the Global Flooring Industry

Approximately 200 kilometers west of Shanghai, within the Changzhou Economic Development Zone—a key manufacturing hub in the Yangtze River Delta—lies a small town named Henglin. Covering just 46 square kilometers, this town now supplies the vast majority of China’s laminate flooring exports. Every day, over 150 containers of flooring and home furnishing products depart from here for destinations across the globe, finding their way into countless living rooms in both American and European households.

Inside the quality inspection workshop of Jiangsu Belle Decoration Material Co., Ltd., workers are conducting final performance tests on a batch of PVC flooring manufactured using eco-friendly processes. Soon, these floors will be packed and shipped to the Port of Hamburg. A few kilometers away, at Zhongtao Home Furnishing, workers are busy packaging stylish and novel mobile steel-wood sideboards—products that will be delivered directly to American consumers via the Amazon platform.

The story of Henglin began in the 1980s, when it was merely a cluster of small workshops producing computer desks. Local entrepreneur Yao Zhongxing recalls, “Back then, we didn’t even know what laminate flooring was. We just focused on making every computer desk well.”

A turning point came in the late 1990s. Laminate flooring from Germany and Belgium entered the Chinese market, and its high price alerted local entrepreneurs to an opportunity. “At that time, imported laminate flooring cost over 300 yuan per square meter, while solid wood flooring was only about 100 yuan,” said a representative from Belle Flooring. “We realized this market had great potential.”

In 1999, Henglin established its first flooring production line. Today, honored by the China Forestry Industry Association as the “Capital of China’s Laminate Flooring,” the town has developed a complete industrial ecosystem. Over 500 manufacturing enterprises and more than 200 supporting firms are clustered here, forming an efficient and collaborative production network that spans everything from base material supply and finished product processing to mold manufacturing and packaging logistics.

“Quality and technological innovation are the keys to our success in the international market,” said a local entrepreneur. “We invest over 3% of our annual sales revenue into R&D and have established a quality control system that complies with both the EU’s REACH regulation and the U.S. CARB certification.”

At the Henglin Cross-border E-commerce Industrial Park, workers at Zhongtao Home Furnishing are preparing goods for Black Friday. Company executive Chen Jialin points to the production line and says, “We have improved product design and functionality based on European consumer preferences. Now, our electric height-adjustable desks are very popular in the American market.”

Local government has played a supportive role throughout this process. Mao Chunsong, head of the Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Section of the Changzhou Economic Development Zone, stated, “We not only help enterprises participate in professional trade fairs like the International Furniture Fair in Cologne but have also established a national-level quality inspection center to ensure products meet international standards.”

Today, Henglin’s product lines have expanded from traditional flooring to whole-house custom furniture. Official statistics indicate that in recent years, the town’s total flooring industry output value has stabilized at the scale of 20 billion yuan. Walking into any factory, one can see production lines bustling with activity for the next season’s overseas orders. Behind this busy scene is its continuously growing share in the global market. Even more impressive is their evolution from market followers to rule-makers—several local enterprises have become contributing participants in formulating international standards for the flooring industry, marking a role transformation from “manufacturing” to “standard-setting.””Every evening, when I see the products we make being loaded onto trucks bound for Hamburg, Los Angeles, and beyond, I know that this small place called Henglin is now closely connected to the world through quality and innovation,” concluded a local entrepreneur.