PLA opens 108 procurements to private firms

Chinese military office has released 108 defense procurement plans to the public and invited private enterprises to participate, reported Liberation Army Daily on Tuesday.

The defense procurements open to the public include war-wound simulator, data processor, short-distance wireless positioning, and hardware such as early warning aircraft and carrier training simulator.

"This round of public procurements is unprecedented in terms of its breadth and depth. It will help optimize our military expense and resource distribution, and further improve the defense quality," said an official of training security bureau of the General Staff to the daily.

According to the newspaper, 117 defense industry companies, including private enterprises, have submitted their proposals, which cover 106 out of the 108 procurements.

Chinese military office is setting up a procurement mechanism that will regularly update on defense demands in order to break monopoly and introduce competition, said the daily.

"About 30 percent of military and civilian inventions could cross over into each other's markets," said Cao Zhiheng, inspector of the ministry's Military-Civilian Promotion Department. "By 2020, China will have a full regulatory system to govern integration and to promote a healthy attitude toward sharing ideas and improving interaction between military and civil companies."

With Mianyang, second-largest city in the Sichuan province, as a main experimental area, China has been developing a greater number of military-to-civilian defense manufacturers and expanding their range of interests, according to Jiang Zhenghua, director of the Committee of the Military-Civilian Integration Research Center at the Academy of Military Sciences.

"President Xi Jinping supports the integration. He says it's a national strategy with great influence on the country's economic development and national security," Jiang said. "We will definitely promote further integration in the future."