I. Zhejiang's Non-Metallic Mineral Products Industry Is Not One Single Business

When discussing a province's non-metallic mineral products industry, people tend to picture it as one thing: burning stone into building materials. Cement, glass, ceramics, refractories all seem to belong to this broad category. Yet in Zhejiang, although these things fall under one statistical heading, they are entirely different businesses.

The most basic end is cement: burning limestone and clay into clinker, grinding it into powder and selling it to construction sites, where the contest is over capacity, haulage distance and cost. The end least like "building material" is fiberglass: drawing molten glass into continuous filaments a few microns thick, then weaving them into cloth for wind turbine blades, circuit boards and lightweight automotive parts, where the contest is over technology, formula and downstream application. Between them sit two more types. One is the deep processing of flat glass, cutting, tempering, coating and laminating original sheets into energy-saving windows and freezer doors. The other is ceramics, and Zhejiang's most significant ceramics lie not in sanitary tiles but in Longquan, in a celadon kiln that has burned for more than 1,700 years.

The Tianxia Gongchang Industry Research Institute singles out Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry precisely because the gap within it is so vast. Within the same category, there is a cement giant like Hongshi that wins on scale, a fiberglass leader like China Jushi that stands atop the world on technology, and Longquan celadon, a historic craft industry that has steeped its skill into culture. This report endorses no investment judgment; it simply maps Zhejiang's landscape, running from bulk cement to high-end fiberglass, from ancient celadon to modern glass processing, and honestly notes the difficulties of transition it now faces.

II. Tongxiang: A World-Class Industry Drawn From a Single Glass Fiber

To understand the brightest pole of Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry, one must start in Tongxiang, in Jiaxing.

What Tongxiang does is draw molten glass into fiber. It sounds unremarkable, yet it has grown a global fiberglass leader: China Jushi. Its products cover more than 3,000 specifications, sold to over 100 countries and regions, with fiberglass capacity above 3.5 million tons, roughly 30% of the world, making it the genuine global number one. In its smart manufacturing base in Tongxiang, industrial robots draw fiber, twist yarn and weave cloth around the clock; by one account, the fiberglass yarn this thousand-plus-acre site produces in a single day could in theory circle the Earth 238 times. In 2023, China Jushi's fiberglass-related revenue was about 14.42 billion yuan, the largest among China's listed fiberglass enterprises.

Tongxiang's fiberglass is not the dominance of one firm but a connected chain. China Jushi's predecessor was a Zhenshi-line enterprise restructured decades ago from the Tongxiang fiberglass factory; today Zhenshi Group still stands on its own with materials such as high-modulus fiberglass fabric, spreading the chain "from making fiberglass to using fiberglass" across the locality alongside Jushi. This fiberglass cluster, anchored by Jushi, has been named a national characteristic industrial cluster for small and medium enterprises. Its value lies not in how many tons of yarn it produces, but in how Tongxiang has lengthened, link by link, the deep chain of "drawing fiber, weaving cloth, composite application." The further fiberglass reaches downstream into wind power, electronics and automobiles, the more valuable and harder to replace this business becomes.

III. Longquan: A Celadon Kiln That Has Burned for 1,700 Years

Travel from Tongxiang's modern fiberglass plants into the mountains of southwestern Zhejiang, and there is an entirely different non-metallic mineral product: Longquan celadon.

What Longquan celadon does is, in essence, also to fire mineral raw material into objects, but its contest is over neither capacity nor technical parameters; it is over craft and culture. Longquan lies in southwestern Zhejiang, and its celadon-firing history can be traced back more than 1,700 years; that jade-like green glaze once traveled far overseas along the maritime Silk Road. In 2006, Longquan celadon firing techniques were inscribed on the first national list of intangible cultural heritage; Zhejiang has designated it one of its key historic craft industries to support.

Placed within the map of non-metallic mineral products, Longquan represents the "culture and craft" pole of the category. Its scale is far below cement and fiberglass; this business relies more on master artisans and brand heritage, and Longquan has gathered a body of national- and provincial-level arts-and-crafts masters and heritage inheritors. Its significance lies not in output ranking but in completing the "historic craft" piece of Zhejiang's category: equally a matter of firing minerals into products, Longquan celadon stakes its value on the scarcity of a millennium-old craft rather than on tonnage. A province's non-metallic mineral products industry built only on cement and glass is thin; with Longquan celadon, the category can both compete in modern manufacturing and keep a living thread of cultural craft.

IV. Huzhou and Deqing: Cutting, Tempering and Coating Flat Glass Into Processed Parts

Beyond fiberglass, Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry has a chain close to daily life, set in the glass deep-processing of the Huzhou and Deqing area.

This stretch does not melt glass from scratch; it processes flat-glass sheets a second time: cutting, tempering, laminating, coating, making them into insulated units, ultimately into energy-saving windows, fire- and bullet-resistant glass, and the glass doors of freezers and refrigerated equipment. Deqing's Zhejiang Samsung New Material focuses on glass door bodies and the deep-processing niche, specializing in glass doors for low-temperature storage equipment, a high-tech enterprise in this lane; Huzhou's Daxiang Glass was among the first in the world to use a continuous rolling process to make glass-ceramics for architectural decoration and induction cookers, with annual capacity above 4.8 million square meters. Around these firms, Huzhou and Deqing have gathered processors of tempered, insulated, laminated and fire-resistant glass.

The role this stretch plays in Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry differs from both Tongxiang's fiberglass and Lanxi's cement. It makes functional glass products closest to the end use; behind an energy-saving window or a freezer door lies the full set of deep-processing skills in cutting, tempering and coating. It does not compete on bulk capacity like cement, nor on the world ranking of a base material like fiberglass; it adds function and value to ordinary flat glass by staying close to downstream demand in construction, appliances and cold chain. With this stretch, Zhejiang's glass industry is not only drawing and weaving fiber, but can also keep value at the deep-processing end nearest to everyday use.

V. Lanxi: Hongshi Burns Limestone Into Cement of World Rank

Move the view back to the bulkiest, most basic end of the category, cement; and Zhejiang's cement cannot bypass Hongshi in Lanxi, Jinhua.

Hongshi Holding's story is a chronicle of private cement's growth. In 1994, it founded Zhejiang's first private joint-stock cement enterprise in Lanxi, starting from a single vertical-kiln line with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons; it then went beyond Lanxi, beyond Zhejiang, and overseas, and today operates nearly 40 large cement plants across ten provinces. Its cement capacity now exceeds 100 million tons, placing it among the world's top ranks by capacity and firmly in the first tier of China's cement industry, one of the nationally significant large cement enterprises under state support. Lanxi has thus made cement, a traditional pillar industry, into a local benchmark.

Hongshi's role in Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry is that of the "bulk cornerstone," the inverse logic of fiberglass and celadon. It makes the most standardized product, cement, where the contest is over scale, energy consumption and haulage distance, and value lies not in differentiation but in cost and volume. Viewed across the province, Zhejiang is itself a large cement-consuming and producing region: in 2022 its cement output was about 129 million tons and clinker output about 59.65 million tons, and by the end of 2023 the province had 45 cement clinker production lines. A leader like Hongshi is precisely the base layer supplying the province's infrastructure and real estate. This stretch is not glamorous, but it is the heaviest in the category and the one most tightly meshed with Zhejiang's urban and rural construction.

VI. The Pieces Together: The Real Shape of Zhejiang's Non-Metallic Mineral Products Industry

Put Tongxiang, Longquan, Huzhou-Deqing and Lanxi side by side, and the shape of Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry becomes clear.

It is not one business but several chains of utterly different character twisted together: Lanxi's Hongshi burns limestone into cement, the bulkiest and most basic end; Tongxiang's China Jushi draws molten glass into fiber and makes the world's number-one fiberglass, the most technology-intensive and international pole; Huzhou and Deqing deep-process flat glass into functional products, the stretch nearest to construction and appliances; and Longquan tends its millennium-old celadon kiln, pushing the category's value all the way to culture and craft. Bulk and high-end, modern and traditional, scale-driven and technology-driven, manufacturing and culture, Zhejiang has packed nearly every form of this category in.

This is also where Zhejiang differs from many large building-materials provinces. Many regions excel at cement, or at architectural ceramics, but few can hold within one province a world-leading fiberglass champion, a millennium-old historic celadon craft, and substantial glass deep-processing and bulk cement all at once. Zhejiang has caught all of these, so its non-metallic mineral products industry has both a cornerstone like Hongshi that wins on scale, a cutting edge like China Jushi that stands atop the world on technology, and a scarce thread like Longquan celadon that has steeped its craft into culture. The value of this structure lies not in every stretch being number one nationally, but in covering the full spectrum from bulk to high-end, from manufacturing to culture, so the category does not come under broad pressure from the cyclical swings of any single product.

VII. The Questions of Transition: Carbon Constraints, Overcapacity, and Moving Upmarket

Broad as the map is, Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry faces concrete questions today, and the difficulty differs for each stretch.

The first question falls on the bulk end, cement, and it is carbon constraints and capacity adjustment. Cement is a textbook high-energy, high-emission industry, first in the line of fire under the dual-carbon goals. Zhejiang's Department of Economy and Information Technology and other bodies have jointly issued an action plan for the high-quality development and carbon peaking of the cement industry, pushing green and low-carbon transition and the reduction of inefficient capacity. For a leader like Hongshi, the future contest is no longer only over capacity scale, but over how low the energy use and carbon emission per unit of product can be pushed; making clinker lines cleaner and more efficient is the pass this stretch cannot avoid.

The second question falls on the high-end, fiberglass, and it is cyclical swings and moving upmarket. Fiberglass is a technical craft, yet it remains a bulk industrial base material, its price heavily swayed by industry-wide capacity additions and downstream demand. As global fiberglass capacity expands in concentrated waves, the room to compete purely on capacity and cost narrows. Whether it can move from ordinary fiberglass toward higher-value directions such as electronic cloth, high-modulus yarn for wind power and high-end composites will decide whether Tongxiang's pole earns the hard money of base materials or commands a technology premium.

The third question falls on the cultural end, Longquan celadon, and it is inheritance and revival. The difficulty of a historic craft industry lies not in capacity but in people: how master artisans bring up a new generation, how a millennium-old craft connects with contemporary design and the market. Keeping an intangible-heritage craft as a museum specimen is not hard; the hard part is keeping it alive in contemporary consumption.

For upstream suppliers serving Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry, whether sales teams in fiberglass raw materials and sizing agents, cement-kiln equipment and refractories, glass deep-processing machinery or ceramic kilns, the Tianxia Gongchang platform allows filtering the factory directory and decision-maker contacts in this category along the two dimensions of region and industry, turning customer development from door-to-door inquiry into following a map.

VIII. The Institute's Assessment

The real weight of Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry lies not in the tonnage of any single product, but in how it has assembled several chains of utterly different character into a structure of enormous span: Lanxi's Hongshi burns limestone into more than a hundred million tons of cement, Tongxiang's China Jushi draws molten glass into the world's number-one fiberglass, Huzhou and Deqing deep-process flat glass into functional products, and Longquan has fired one celadon kiln for 1,700 years. Hongshi's cement capacity above 100 million tons, China Jushi's roughly 30% share of global fiberglass, Longquan celadon's status among the first national intangible heritage items, these facts tell one story: Zhejiang has not staked the category on a single form, but let bulk and high-end, modern and traditional take shape separately and cover for one another.

But great span does not mean freedom from difficulty. As the dual-carbon line tightens, as global fiberglass expansion grows fiercer, and as the inheritance of a millennium-old craft depends ever more on people, the question Zhejiang must answer is no longer "can it produce tens of millions more tons of cement, draw tens of thousands more tons of fiberglass," but whether cement can be burned cleaner, fiberglass made more advanced, and celadon passed on longer. Hongshi's carbon peaking, Jushi's move upmarket, Longquan's revival are in essence three unconnected questions within one category, and a province that has packed bulk, high-end and culture into one statistical heading must find an upward path for each stretch separately. The Tianxia Gongchang Industry Research Institute's assessment is that the strength of Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry lies precisely in never relying on a single pole; and the outcome of its next stage will turn on whether it can make a cornerstone like cement greener, a cutting edge like fiberglass finer, and a craft like celadon more alive, three tasks not one of which can complete itself on external market conditions, each to be carried through on its own.

Data Sources

  • Tianxia Gongchang (factory directory and industry data for Zhejiang's non-metallic mineral products industry)
  • Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, Securities Times: China Jushi's fiberglass capacity and global market share, 2023 fiberglass-related revenue, fiberglass industry competitive landscape
  • Yangtze Economic Belt Net, Zhejiang Online, World Zhejiang Merchants Net: the Tongxiang fiberglass cluster led by Jushi, the lineage of Zhenshi Group, investment and capacity of the Tongxiang smart manufacturing base, inclusion in the national list of characteristic SME clusters, Jushi's product specifications and export countries
  • China Intangible Cultural Heritage Net, Zhejiang Online, Zhejiang CPPCC research report: the inscription of Longquan celadon firing techniques on the first national intangible heritage list, its standing as a historic craft industry, its body of arts-and-crafts masters and inheritors
  • Zhejiang New Materials Industry Association, Glass.com.cn, venture-capital platform records: Zhejiang Samsung New Material's positioning in glass door bodies and deep processing, Daxiang Glass's continuous rolling process for glass-ceramics and its annual capacity
  • Hongshi Holding records, China Cement Net, Shanghai Stock Exchange disclosures, Qianzhan Industry Research Institute: Hongshi cement's development history, capacity scale and global and domestic ranking, and Lanxi's standing as a traditional pillar industry
  • Zhejiang Department of Economy and Information Technology, Zhejiang Bureau of Statistics, China Cement Net: the cement industry's high-quality development and carbon-peaking action plan, the province's 2022 cement and clinker output, and the number of cement clinker production lines