Shengze town in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, is redefining its millennia-old silk legacy by embracing cross-border e-commerce to achieve unprecedented growth and establish itself as a formidable player in global trade.

During the first half of 2025, Shengze's cross-border e-commerce import and export volume reached 2.46 billion yuan ($346.2 million), reflecting a staggering year-on-year increase of 292.5 percent.

A significant contributor to this success is the Silk Road Nanhua Cross-Border E-Commerce Industrial Park, which alone accounted for nearly 790 million yuan.

Since its inauguration over a year ago, the industrial park has attracted 86 businesses, with 37 of these being cross-border e-commerce enterprises.

Lu Ziping, the deputy mayor of Shengze town and director of the China Oriental Silk Market Management Office, said: "In our transformation, upgrading, and foreign trade development, we have three innovations, one of which is the concept of 'upstairs and downstairs are the upstream and downstream'."

"Our building, though only about twenty stories high, houses the entire textile foreign trade supply chain, from raw material production at the base level to packaging and distribution at the top. Customers purchasing fabrics find they can seamlessly move upstairs to continue garment production, with distribution channels also conveniently located, making the process highly efficient."

Shengze's exports predominantly consist of fabrics and raw materials, which make up 90 percent of its output, with only 4.4 percent directly exported to the US. Sixty percent of its products are now exported to Southeast Asian countries.

From January to August 2025, Shengze's foreign trade exports grew by 7.4 percent, showing steady progress despite the challenging international trade environment.