(Yicai Global) June 14 -- China had 11,808 incubator organizations by the end of last year, and 3.95 million people at work in the firms and start-up teams being incubated.

The country logged 620,000 such cultivated companies and teams and 206,000 incubated technology-related small-and medium-sized firms, up 17.7 percent per year, according to a development report on Chinese startup incubators for this year issued by the Torch High Technology Industry Development Center at the country's Ministry of Science and Technology.

Nurtured companies owned more than 656,000 effective intellectual property rights, of which 106,000 were invention patents, per the report.

Private firms made up 63 percent of incubated companies and state-backed enterprises were 16 percent, while the proportions for public institutions, private non-firm units, social organizations and other types were 12 percent, 4 percent, 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively. 

The Yangtze River Delta region has the most such corporate nurseries in China, with 2, 601 makerspaces and incubators, making up 22 percent of the national total.

Editor: Ben Armour