I. Why Jiangxi Merits Its Own Analysis

A small number of provinces are genuinely indispensable to any understanding of China's non-metallic mineral products industry. Jiangxi is one of them.

The province holds the world's most recognizable ceramics address — Jingdezhen. It is home to central China's largest building ceramics production cluster — Gao'an. And it hosts a specialized industrial ceramics cluster in Pingxiang's Xiangdong district that controls approximately 60% of the national market for chemical ceramic fillers. These three clusters are geographically dispersed, produce largely non-overlapping product lines, and operate on fundamentally different commercial logics. Layered on top sits a substantial cement capacity base that rounds out the provincial picture. The result is a sector in Jiangxi that is considerably more structured than the shorthand label "ceramics province" would suggest.

This report does not attempt exhaustive coverage of every product category. Its purpose is to map the three representative clusters — their respective industrial logic, enterprise landscape, and upstream procurement demand — and draw out what is distinctive about each.

II. Gao'an: China's Largest County-Level Building Ceramics Production Base

Gao'an, a county-level city under Yichun prefecture, is the starting point for any analysis of Jiangxi's building ceramics sector.

According to data published by the Gao'an municipal government, Gao'an produced 798 million square meters of building ceramics in 2022, accounting for 10.8% of national output, and recorded revenue of RMB 37.59 billion. As of 2023, the Gao'an building ceramics cluster comprised 197 production and supporting enterprises, including 52 above-scale ceramic producers operating 182 production lines. In the January–November 2023 period, the cluster generated revenue of RMB 35.396 billion, up 2.53% year-on-year, with total profit of RMB 2.084 billion, up 12.15%.

Several structural factors explain how Gao'an became the dominant building ceramics production base in central China. First, Jiangxi holds substantial deposits of kaolin, feldspar, and other ceramic raw materials; local sourcing reduces input costs meaningfully. Second, Gao'an's logistics position allows cost-effective distribution to Hunan, Hubei, and Guangdong — major building material consumption markets. Third, the cluster's ecosystem has matured: suppliers of glazes, kiln equipment, ceramic machinery, and packaging materials have co-located near production facilities, compressing unit procurement costs across the board.

Data from the China Building and Sanitary Ceramics Association show that the number of above-scale national ceramic enterprises contracted from 1,432 in 2016 to 1,022 in 2023 — a reduction of nearly 30%. Gao'an has navigated this consolidation with relative stability: the cluster has emphasized green upgrading and intelligent manufacturing rather than outright capacity reduction. The municipal government's "869 Action Plan" is driving brand development alongside these structural adjustments. Leading enterprises include Jiangxi Huashuo Ceramic Group, which operates five production bases with annual capacity exceeding 190 million square meters, placing it among the national top three.

III. Jingdezhen: From Porcelain Capital to Advanced Ceramics Growth Engine

Jingdezhen's ceramics story operates on two levels: traditional art and daily-use porcelain, and the advanced (functional) ceramics segment that has accelerated sharply in recent years.

Jingdezhen municipal statistics show that the city's ceramics industry total output value reached RMB 86.125 billion in 2023, representing a threefold increase over three years. Within that figure, advanced ceramics has become a significant and growing contributor: in 2024, the advanced ceramics sector generated output value of RMB 26.03 billion, up 28.87% year-on-year, accounting for 34.7% of the city's total ceramics industrial output.

Advanced ceramics encompasses piezoelectric, varistor, and thermistor functional ceramics, as well as structural ceramics and biomedical ceramics. Jingdezhen High-Tech Zone has concentrated its development around five directions: communications and electronics, new energy and aerospace, biomedical, environmental protection, and defense. The cluster currently includes nearly 200 advanced ceramics enterprises, among them 24 national high-tech enterprises, 22 "specialized and innovative" enterprises, and 5 national "little giant" enterprises in this category.

In the traditional art ceramics segment, Jingdezhen's competitive position is rooted in brand premium and cultural value rather than commodity volume. The building ceramics market — where scale and cost efficiency determine outcomes — is not Jingdezhen's primary battlefield. This creates a complementary division of labor with Gao'an that is stable rather than competitive. Jingdezhen's current trajectory is to leverage its accumulated craft expertise and human capital in ceramics to move up the value stack into technically demanding advanced ceramic products, rather than to expand in the already saturated building ceramics market.

IV. Pingxiang Xiangdong: The Hidden Dominant Force in Industrial Ceramics

Xiangdong District in Pingxiang city has been designated "China's Industrial Ceramic Capital" by the China National Light Industry Council, and is recognized as one of the country's founding centers of industrial ceramic production. Unlike Jingdezhen's art ceramics or Gao'an's building ceramics, Xiangdong's output is directed almost entirely at industrial applications: chemical packing materials, acid-resistant bricks, ceramic random packing, ceramic structured packing, ball arches, and environmental desulfurization and denitrification materials.

Xiangdong's chemical ceramic packing products hold approximately 60% of the national market share, with certain environmental ceramic sub-categories reaching 70%. The Xiangdong Industrial Ceramics Park hosts 144 production and support enterprises, with total annual capacity exceeding 700,000 tonnes across more than 30 product series. Products are exported to over 100 countries and regions across Europe and the Americas. In 2022, Xiangdong's industrial ceramic exports reached RMB 1.35 billion. The cluster has been recognized as a National Specialized Industrial Cluster for SMEs and a National Foreign Trade Transformation and Upgrade Base (Industrial Ceramics).

The market logic of Xiangdong differs fundamentally from that of building ceramics. Building ceramics are sold to contractors and consumers, where brand recognition and channel coverage matter; industrial ceramics are sold to chemical plants, metallurgical enterprises, and power companies, where procurement is driven by engineering departments and technical specifications take precedence over price. Maintaining 60% national market share in this environment requires not just volume but accumulated process expertise, customization capability, and proven reliability with industrial clients — assets Xiangdong has built over decades.

V. Cement and Glass: The Foundational Manufacturing Layer

Beyond the three ceramics clusters, Jiangxi's cement and glass sectors constitute the foundational support layer of the provincial non-metallic mineral products industry.

In cement, Jiangxi produced approximately 87.686 million tonnes in 2022. Output for January–November 2023 was 65.13 million tonnes, down 7.9% year-on-year — consistent with the national trend of contracting cement demand as the real estate market adjusts. Jiangxi Wannianqing Cement (Shenzhen Stock Exchange: 000789) is the province's most prominent listed cement enterprise; in the first half of 2023, it produced 9.99 million tonnes of cement, up 9.48% year-on-year, representing over 20% of provincial output. Other significant players include Yatai Cement (a joint venture with Asia Cement) and capacity installed by Conch Cement in the Fengcheng and Nanchang areas.

In glass, Jiangxi is an important producer of flat glass. Kibing Group maintains float glass production facilities in Jingdezhen, and Nanchang and Jiujiang host glass processing enterprises. Medium-term demand growth for both cement and glass is constrained by the real estate sector's adjustment; incremental demand will depend disproportionately on infrastructure investment and industrial facility construction.

VI. Upstream Supply Chain: Who Supplies These Factories

The scale of Jiangxi's three ceramics clusters implies sustained, large-volume procurement demand across the upstream supply chain:

Glazes and chemical raw materials: Gao'an's building ceramics production lines consume large quantities of pigments, frits, and glaze slurries. Current sourcing is dominated by suppliers from Foshan (Guangdong) and Luoyang (Henan), creating a stable opportunity window for external suppliers seeking to enter the Gao'an market.

Kiln equipment and automation: The green and intelligent manufacturing transition in building ceramics is driving procurement demand for energy-efficient roller kilns, intelligent sorting lines, and automated packaging equipment. Pingxiang's industrial ceramics enterprises similarly require specialized forming equipment and high-temperature testing instruments.

Refractory materials: Gao'an's production lines have steady demand for refractory bricks, mullite, and other kiln linings. While Pingxiang's Xiangdong itself produces some acid-resistant and refractory products, high-purity refractories for advanced structural ceramics remain a significant external procurement category.

Packaging and logistics: Building ceramics packaging (corrugated boxes, foam, wooden frames, plastic film) and premium packaging for Jingdezhen art ceramics are both high-volume procurement categories with predictable recurring demand.

Industrial gases and kiln fuel: Ceramics firing is energy-intensive; the stability and pricing of natural gas and LPG supply are material cost variables for producers across all three clusters.

Upstream sales teams operating in any of these categories — glaze raw materials, kiln equipment, refractories, or industrial packaging — will find Jiangxi's three ceramics production zones a high-priority client market. Sales teams supplying upstream materials to factories in these clusters can filter by Jiangxi × Non-Metallic Mineral Products on Tianxia Gongchang to build a structured factory prospect list and replace ad hoc outreach with systematic client development.

VII. Challenges and the Research Institute's Assessment

Jiangxi's non-metallic mineral products sector faces two structural pressures.

The first is national overcapacity in building ceramics. Total national building ceramics output from above-scale enterprises fell to 67.3 billion square meters in 2023, down 8% year-on-year. Gao'an has maintained relative stability in this environment, but the medium-to-long-term pressure on production line utilization rates is real and not reversible through cluster inertia alone. The critical variable for Gao'an's next decade is whether it can successfully pivot toward green low-carbon products (thin-slab tiles, low-carbon kiln processes) and intelligent manufacturing, or whether it competes on a narrowing cost margin as other regional production bases close the gap.

The second is that Jingdezhen's advanced ceramics sector, while growing rapidly, remains in a scaling phase rather than a position of market dominance. Output of RMB 26 billion already exceeds one-third of the city's total ceramics value, but on the national scale of China's advanced ceramics market, Jingdezhen is an important and growing participant rather than a controlling force. Ceramics for communications electronics and biomedical applications require sustained technical investment and a longer enterprise development cycle; the outcome is genuinely uncertain.

The Tianxia Gongchang Industry Research Institute's overall assessment is as follows. Of the three pillars of Jiangxi's non-metallic mineral products sector, Pingxiang Xiangdong has the most durable moat: industrial ceramic customers bear high switching costs, technical relationships are sticky, and the pace of product substitution is slow. A 60% national market share built on this basis does not erode quickly from any single competitive challenge. Gao'an's competitive advantage is more efficiency-based than technology-based — it wins through scale and cost rather than differentiation, which creates meaningful medium-term exposure as the national building ceramics market adjusts but does not imply near-term structural displacement. Jingdezhen carries the most open-ended variables: whether its advanced ceramics trajectory produces genuine national competitive leadership in technically demanding applications is worth continued observation, and premature conclusions in either direction are not warranted at this stage.

Data Sources

  • Tianxia Gongchang (Jiangxi non-metallic mineral products factory directory and industry data)
  • Gao'an Municipal People's Government: Gao'an Building Ceramics Industrial Development Overview (2022 output 798M sqm, revenue RMB 37.59B)
  • Gao'an Municipal People's Government: 2023 Building Ceramics Base Annual Summary (Jan–Nov 2023 revenue RMB 35.4B)
  • Jingdezhen Municipal People's Government statistics: 2024 City Economic Performance (ceramics industry output value and advanced ceramics output data)
  • Jingdezhen Municipal People's Government: The Rise of New Productive Forces in the Ceramics Industry (advanced ceramics enterprise count data)
  • China Ceramics Network: Pingxiang Xiangdong Awarded Title of China's Industrial Ceramic Capital (60% national market share in chemical fillers)
  • Sina News: Pingxiang Xiangdong Industrial Ceramics Cluster — Sustained Orders and Accelerating Development (cluster scale data)
  • China Building and Sanitary Ceramics Association: 2023 National Ceramic Tile Output 67.3B sqm, 1,022 Above-Scale Enterprises
  • 100njz.com: 2023 Jiangxi Cement Market Review (2022 provincial cement output 87.686M tonnes)
  • Jiangxi Wannianqing Cement 2023 Interim Report (cement output and market share data)