NANCHANG, June 25 (Xinhua) -- The world knows Jiangxi Province in eastern China as home to the famed porcelain capital, Jingdezhen, celebrated for its fine tableware and artistic ceramics. Few, however, are aware that the same province hosts another porcelain hub, in Luxi County, dubbed China's capital of electric porcelain.
Unlike artistically crafted porcelain and everyday ceramics, electric porcelain -- also known as ceramic insulators -- is mounted on power lines to insulate high-voltage wires from metal pylons, preventing electric leakage and blackouts.
The seemingly mundane product has quietly powered Luxi's rise from an industrial backwater to a global supplier of high-voltage insulators. By revamping traditional local niche industries, adopting smart manufacturing, and capturing larger shares in the global industrial supply chains, the little-known county has achieved a remarkable industrial upgrade, demonstrating China's broader push to boost county-level economic growth.
At the workshop of Sinoma Jiangxi Insulator and Electricity Co., Ltd., automated vehicles, AI scanners, and robotic arms run the entire production process. The digital production line, worth 80 million yuan (about 11.74 million U.S. dollars), has replaced outdated manual labor entirely.
The company generated over 400 million yuan in revenue in 2025, with exports accounting for 45 percent of its total.
"About 80 percent of our export orders come from the United States and Southern Europe. We are a regular supplier to global names such as Siemens and TE Connectivity," said Han Youmin, deputy general manager of the company.
In the past, Luxi's electric porcelain industry struggled with a crude, extensive mode of production.
"The workshops used to be dirty and chaotic, the equipment was outdated, and more than 30 production steps still relied on physical labor," recalled Zhang Mengsheng, secretary-general of the county's electric porcelain chamber of commerce. "We were desperate for digital and green upgrades."
As grid upgrade standards tightened both at home and abroad, and environmental regulations became more stringent, the county had to phase out old, unsustainable practices.
Companies began retrofitting lightweight insulated kilns, building workshops equipped with photovoltaic panels, and leveraging an experiment platform at the local high-voltage electric porcelain research institute to introduce key technologies in ultra-high-voltage and new ceramic materials.
Peng Dinggang, deputy director of the county's bureau of industry and information technology, said the government provided financial subsidies at all levels to cut enterprises' technological transformation costs, and collaborated with research institutes and industrial chambers to advance R&D and expand overseas sales channels.
Backed by government policies, local enterprises have carried out differentiated intelligent transformations tailored to their own conditions.
Luxi is now home to 143 electric porcelain firms employing 30,000 workers, which collectively raked in 16 billion yuan in revenue in 2025. Its 110kV insulators hold a 75 percent share of the domestic market and a 20 percent share of the global market. Exports surpassed 380 million yuan last year, with products sold to the United States, as well as European, African and Southeast Asian countries.
China's 15th Five-Year Plan calls for the development of diversified county economies with distinctive characteristics, and encourages localities to advance integrated growth of industries, counties, and public welfare.
Other examples of this type of growth include thriving garment manufacturing clusters in Haining, a county-level city in eastern China's Zhejiang Province; flourishing tea processing industries in Anxi County, a well-known tea production base in Fujian Province; and new material bases taking shape in Xinghua, Jiangsu Province.
Observers say diversified industries are continuing to inject momentum into the steady growth of county economies nationwide, boosting green and sustainable development. ■
