Missile maker to offer $6.7b deals online

Lyu Xiaoge, head of publicity office of CASIC. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Aerospace giant CASIC also invites private firms to take part in its commercial rocket project

One of China's largest State-owned defense contractors will announce outsourcing deals worth tens of billions of yuan later this year, a move that is expected to benefit the country's private enterprises.

China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, the nation's largest missile manufacturer, said in a recent statement that it will procure 43 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) worth of products and services from Chinese companies through CASICloud.com, one of China-based international industrial platforms.

Based on specific requirements, contract winners will be asked to provide research and development services, to make components or entire equipment, or to conduct tests or measurements for the company.

Lyu Xiaoge, spokesman and head of publicity office of CASIC, told China Daily that these procurement needs were decided after collecting and analyzing outsourcing plans from the company's subsidiaries. They will be gradually published on the CASICloud website in accordance with schedules of the subsidiaries concerned.

The move aims to increase the company's business transparency, reduce its outsourcing costs as well as attract better suppliers. It also intends to set a good example for other Chinese enterprises in terms of taking advantage of the internet and fulfilling the supply-side structural reform, which was launched by the central government in late 2015 to improve China-made products, Lyu said.

The CASICloud platform was launched in June 2015. Nearly 94,000 Chinese and foreign companies have registered on the site since then. More than 28,000 contracts with a value of 1.6 billion yuan have been inked through the website so far, said Lyu.

In another development, CASIC has invited private enterprises to take part in its commercial rocket project.

The company's Fourth Academy recently commissioned a private company to develop and manufacture composite-material case for the Kuaizhou 11 solid-fuel rocket's engine.

The academy would need at least three years to develop and make the engine case itself as it will have to build a new plant for the component.

In comparison, the private company has promised it will develop the product and then make the delivery within nine months.

"This private company is very speedy in decision-making, product development and material purchase, which allows it to reduce the period required for the production by two months and reduce the cost by more than 50 percent," said Liang Jiqiu, chief designer of the Kuaizhou 11.

Liang's academy began to develop Kuaizhou solid-fuel rockets in 2009, intending to form a low-cost, quick-response rocket family for the commercial launch market.

The first in the family, Kuaizhou 1, was launched in September 2013 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gansu province, putting an earth observation satellite into orbit. In November 2014, the Kuaizhou 2 sent another satellite into space from the same launch center.

Currently, the academy is making the Kuaizhou 11 and plans to launch it around 2017, according to the designer.

An earlier report by the Economic Information Daily quoted sources from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as saying that the market value of space launch service, satellite applications as well as space-based internet will reach around 800 billion yuan by the end of 2020.