Former Beijing market transforms into a high-tech incubator

BEIJING - Gu Xiaozheng, founder of a drone development startup, has just moved his office from Zhongguancun, known as Beijing's "Silicon Valley," into an office building near the Beijing Zoo.

The building was formerly well-known to Beijing residents as a garment market, one of 12 shopping malls within the Beijing Zoo Wholesale Market, which was the largest garment distribution center in north China until it was closed and cleared out in 2017.

The building has been renamed Baolan Finance and Innovation Center and contains 11,000 square meters of office space. Gu's firm, which develops industrial-use drones, was among the first group of nine tenants that have moved in.