Ningjin, a county under Dezhou city in Shandong province with a population of less than 500,000 has quietly become one of the world’s largest commercial fitness equipment production bases. The small county now accounts for more than 70% of China’s domestic fitness equipment market and its products have been exported to over 170 countries and regions. At the center of this industrial rise is Zhou Yueming, Founder of Shandong DHZ Fitness Equipment Co. He got his start in the late 1990s in a roadside workshop barely large enough to fit two lathes. Using a hammer and a second-hand welder in his backyard, he banged out the very first set of fitness equipment ever made in Ningjin. Today, Zhou is Chairman of a company with a sprawling 340,000-square-meter super factory capable of producing 500,000 units a year. He’s quick to stress, however, that scale alone doesn’t make it “super”. “A real super factory needs four things,” he said. “Super capacity, super response, super quality and super intelligence. Without those, you’re just big, not great.”
The concept of “super response” is one he’s particularly proud of. In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic brought global trade to a halt, Zhou’s team pivoted rapidly. Within seven days, they repurposed their machinery to mask production lines, helping meet local demand and keeping workers on the payroll. “That’s what we mean by response,” Zhou said. “It’s not just reacting fast. It’s about being aligned with what the world needs, before the world even knows it needs it.”
In the early 2000s, as China’s domestic fitness trend began to emerge, more and more Ningjin locals began following Zhou and tinkering with gym machines. Over time, a kind of collective trial-and-error engineering culture took hold. As orders grew, the local government stepped in. Industrial parks were zoned, export support was introduced and logistics infrastructure was upgraded. Today, nearly 3,000 fitness and sports equipment companies call Ningjin home. In 2024, the county’s gym equipment industry reached a total output value of CNY13.9 billion, employing over 40,000 people. The small county is also home to 11 provincial-level “little giant” firms, which refer to innovative specialized small enterprises recognized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). One of them, MBH, has pioneered automated assembly lines for home-use cardio machines and now holds dozens of domestic and international patents. “Innovation doesn’t have to mean blue-sky R&D,” said Liu Xinli, General Manager of MBH. Liu said that sometimes it means figuring out how to shave 0.5 second off a welding cycle or pack a rowing machine into a box that fits better in a shipping container.
“The next battlefield isn’t price. It’s algorithms, data and user experience. It’s not about making more, it’s about making smarter,” he emphasized. At MBH, 47 different product series, with over 400 individual models, line showroom floors. Around 30% of them are intelligent devices, embedded with software that recognizes users’ faces, evaluates their health metrics and tailors a workout plan in real time. Liu said that the company’s orders this year are up more than 40%, with around 70% of those being exports. In the company’s warehouse, dozens of containers packed with equipment are ready to leave for Brazil, valued at around USD50,000 per container.
Such a sentiment echoed across town at Shandong Brightway Fitness Equipment Co, another rising star in Ningjin’s fitness equipment manufacturing galaxy. Their production line runs on full automation – laser cutters, robotic welders, automated paint sprayers – achieving over 95% in-house parts manufacturing. In recent years, e-commerce sales alone contributed to over 50% growth year-on-year. What makes Ningjin truly unique isn’t just its manufacturing muscle, it’s the speed of its ecosystem. Thanks to its dense clustering of nearly 3,000 related enterprises, any gym machine can be built, assembled and packaged without ever leaving the county. “From design to sales, everything happens right here. Every component, every screw, every tube – we can get it within 30 minutes,” said Duan Tiemin, Chairman of Brightway.
This ultra-efficient network has transformed Ningjin into what one might call a “county-level supercomputer”. Every company a node, every supplier a subroutine, all running one vast calculation: how to make fitness equipment faster, cheaper and smarter than anyone else. In the first quarter alone, Ningjin’s 28 major fitness equipment firms generated more than CNY1 billion in industrial output, with tax revenue up nearly 26% year-on-year. Exports of fitness equipment also accounted for over half the county’s total foreign trade last year, and the sector comprised 16 of its top 20 exporting firms. For years, Ningjin’s manufacturers focused on OEM, churning out low-cost gear under foreign labels. That’s changing. An increasing number of Ningjin companies are going beyond contract work and building their own brands, backed by serious R&D. A public brand called Ningjin Fitness Equipment now covers 59 product lines, and the area has been designated as a national sports industry demonstration base, the China Daily reports.
