The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is now inviting private sector enterprises to join in its military equipment development program by tendering their bids for its training-related contracts.
The PLA General Staff Headquarters recently published 108 military items for "advanced training technologies and equipment," encouraging private companies to take part in their research, development and manufacturing, according to official media reports.
The 108 items mentioned in the PLA invitation to tender bids include dummies to be used by medical personnel, simulators for early warning planes, aircraft carrier operators as well as cutting-edge technologies such as short-distance wireless positioning and cloud computing.
Some 117 defense industry companies, including privately owned firms, have reportedly already submitted bid proposals for 106 procurement contracts.
The PLA Daily, a media outlet covering China's military sector, lauded the newest initiative to tap the private sector as cost-efficient and will optimize the distribution of military resources. Since private enterprises often boast advanced innovative approaches, tapping into their expertise and facilitating civil-military integration will better serve PLA's needs, the paper said.
Xu Guangyu, a retired PLA major general, told the South China Morning Post that the move would allow the military to tap into the huge amount of design talent in the civilian sector. He said that it would also reduce costs, promote competition, encourage innovation and was in line with a government plan to have greater input from the civilian sector in the military.
Since 2005, China has been gradually opening its defense market to the private sector. According to a report from China Daily, more than 500 private companies had received permission to develop and produce weapons or other military equipment, and about 1,000 civilian technologies had been used in equipment development for the PLA as of May 2013.
It is standard operating procedure for any business, whether or not privately owned, to obtain government-issued licenses on confidentiality and technological capability before it can be qualified to bid for PLA contracts.