Two Jimo-based business incubators in Qingdao, Shandong province, along with another 360 from around the country, were recently approved as the second group of "national maker spaces" by the Torch High Technology Industry Development Center, Ministry of Science and Technology.

Shandong province, with 50 spaces, ranked first among all provinces. Twenty of those, or 40 percent, were from Qingdao.

Qingdao Agriculture Maker Space and Haichuang Maker Space were the only two selected from Qingdao’s county-level cities.

Relying on its functional zones such as the Blue Silicon Valley Core Area and Qingdao International Land Port, Jimo city has set up 16 maker spaces with a total of 157 ventures, 268 teams and 2,371 employees within its more than 80,000 square meters.

China is transitioning its development pattern to make innovation, with a maker economy at its core, a key driver of economic development.