The glasses you are wearing now most likely came from this small town!
Most of the drill bits used for home decoration and factory processing are also sold here!
In Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, there is an extremely low-key top 100 county-level city – Danyang.
It does not have a high reputation, nor does it have the popularity of Internet celebrities in cultural tourism, but it relies on solid hard-core manufacturing to breed two world-class champion industries, firmly establishing itself at the core of the global industrial chain!
Glasses lenses: occupy half of the world, and Chinese people basically rely on them for wearing glasses
Many people don’t know: nearly half of the world’s spectacle lenses are produced in Danyang!
The specific hard-core data is clear at a glance: the global market share is close to 50%; the domestic market share is as high as more than 70%; the annual output of lenses exceeds 400 million pairs, making it the veritable lens capital of the world.
Who would have thought that the Danyang glasses industry, which is now comparable to international big names, started from grassroots entrepreneurship in the 1960s.
At that time, a group of young people in Danyang went out to learn skills. After returning home, they built simple workshops in the fields. They relied on manual polishing and experience to delve deeper into the lens manufacturing industry.
Starting from the most basic low-end lenses, we overcame the difficulties of backward equipment and limited technology, and completed the perfect counterattack from a “small workshop” to a “world-class industrial cluster”.
After decades of iterative development, Danyang Eyewear has already realized a closed loop of the entire industry chain: the city has gathered more than 1,600 eyewear-related companies and more than 50,000 employees. From lens raw materials, coating processing, frame production to testing and sales, all links are completed locally in one stop.
More importantly, Danyang has broken the long-term technical barriers abroad!
Successfully conquered the core technology of 1.74 ultra-high refractive index ultra-thin lenses, ending the long-term leadership of Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea in the field of high-end lenses.
Products are exported to more than 50 countries and regions around the world. Whether it is affordable glasses or high-end optical lenses, Danyang is the core supplier of the global market.
Industrial drill bits: Dominate the global market, with a market share of up to 70%
If the glasses industry is the ace in demand for people’s livelihood, then drill bit manufacturing is Danyang’s core industrial trump card!
As a core production area for domestic hardware tools, Danyang’s twist drills and high-speed steel drill bits account for 70% of the global market, making it the world’s largest drill bit production base.
The foundation of Danyang’s hardware tool industry comes from the long local tradition of forging craftsmanship.
Starting from the village-run agricultural machinery factory in the 1980s, Danyang manufacturers abandoned the low-end processing model and focused on the research and development and production of high-end drill bits and high-speed steel materials.
Decades of hard work on technology and deep cultivation of subdivisions have finally led to overtaking in a corner: At present, the city has more than 500 hardware tool manufacturing companies, forming a complete industrial chain from special steel, steel wire drawing, heat treatment to finished product polishing. All production processes can be equipped within a 3-kilometer industrial circle, leading the world in cost, efficiency, and quality.
Tiangong International, a leading enterprise, has achieved many world firsts: high-speed steel production has ranked first in the world for 21 consecutive years. It is one of the few companies in the world that has mastered the manufacturing technology of full powder series products. Its products are widely used in core fields such as aerospace, new energy vehicles, and high-end precision manufacturing, representing the top level of China’s hardware manufacturing.
Nowadays, Danyang drill bits not only monopolize the civilian and tooling markets, but also deeply support high-end industrial manufacturing. They are an indispensable Chinese force in the global precision processing industry.
No resources, no preference!
Why does Danyang lead the world?
Danyang is located in southern Jiangsu. It does not have unique mineral resources or special policy preferences. It can breed two world-class industries because of three things:
1. Grassroots hard work and the courage to venture and fight.
Starting from small workshops in the fields and agricultural machinery factories in rural areas, Danyang people are not afraid of low starting points and hardships in the industry. They have taken root in the subdivided track and have been cultivating for decades, turning small products into large industries.
2. Close the entire chain to reduce costs and improve quality.
The two major industries of glasses and drill bits have realized localized full-process production, and the upstream and downstream are highly concentrated, which greatly reduces production costs and shortens production cycles. The quality controllability far exceeds that of overseas companies, forming absolute market competitiveness.
3. Develop as a team and develop deep expertise.
Local enterprises refuse to be involved in disorder, focus on subdivided areas, perform their own duties and develop collaboratively, creating a county industry benchmark of “one domain, one product, one product is extremely strong”.
A small city with a population of one million, without hype or publicity, quietly takes root in the real economy and conquers the global market with a small lens and a small drill.
From manual OEM to technological independence, from low-end manufacturing to high-end leadership, Danyang perfectly explains the core strength of China’s county manufacturing!
Thumbs up for the low-key and powerful Made in China!
