July 26 was celebrated in Qingdao as the Day of Crafts-persons. Qingdao planned and launched six categories of activities, including an exhibition of outstanding crafts-persons, improvements in skills of crafts-persons, innovation efforts among crafts-persons and a campaign on carrying forward the spirit of craftsmanship. They were aimed at creating a comprehensive system of spreading the spirit of craftsmanship and stimulating innovation among crafts-persons so that jobs innovation and creation with craftsmanship can be advocated across the city.

Since Qingdao took the lead in Shandong Province in instituting the day of craftsmen in 2023, it is increasingly encouraged to show respect for labour, place emphasis on skills, and become bold in pursuing innovation, the cohort of crafts-persons is continuing to expand, among whom are six national level outstanding crafts-persons, including Xu Zhenchao who was honored with the title “People’s Craftsperson”, and Guan Yihui, one of Annual Figures among Crafts-persons of the Nation, the number of all sorts of crafts-persons has exceeded 10,000, and workers has contributed to an annual average of more than 30,000 innovation achievements.

Themed “Leveraging the Enabling Role of Craftsmanship, Facilitating Sci-Tech Innovation with Craftsmanship”, this year’s event to celebrate the day of crafts-persons in Qingdao helped advance the in-depth integration of sci-tech innovation and industrial innovation. Among this year’s winners of the two titles, namely, “Great Crafts-persons of Qingdao” and “Qingdao Crafts-persons”, nearly a half engage in the “10+1” innovation-oriented industrial system, about 13% relate to the “4+4+2” modern marine industrial system, and 10% work in the top ten modern service sectors. All workers across key industrial chains have been imbued with the desire of pursuing innovation. This will inject a continuous stream of impetus into the city’s high-quality development. (Ren Xiaomeng)

In the Qingdao MESNAC Equipment Industry Park, technical personnel are assembling and testing intelligent tyre building machines.  By Zhao Jianpeng