The Department of Industry and Information Technology of Shandong Province recently issued the Measures for the Cultivation and Recognition of Advanced Manufacturing Clusters in Shandong Province (Interim) (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"). Shandong will recognize provincial advanced manufacturing clusters once a year and review them every three years to build a batch of advanced manufacturing clusters with strong competitiveness by building a cultivation and development system where clusters are graded and may change grade after review.

The Measures specifies seven basic conditions for applying for provincial advanced manufacturing clusters, including high-end industrial positioning, high degree of industrial agglomeration, strong industrial driving force, wide range of collaborative innovation, promotion of organizational standardization, efficient opening-up and cooperation, and constraint conditions for work safety. In particular, the cluster should have relatively concentrated high-quality enterprises with strong growth such as "specialized, fined, peculiar and new" technologies, single champion of manufacturing industry and high technologies, which can lead the development direction of green and low-carbon industry and digital empowerment, with leading products with distinctive characteristics, high technical content, and added value. Shandong will establish a provincial advanced manufacturing cluster cultivation reserve bank to guide the industry and information technology departments at all levels to give key support in the application for provincial advanced manufacturing cluster enterprise projects, platform creation, accreditation and selection, and policy support.