Under a strict top-down design and supervision, Megaprojects abide by the following principles, in line with the country’s major socio-economic development needs:
- Fostering of a series of strategic industries which might lead to the realisation of indigenously-generated intellectual property (IP), at the same time stimulating the indigenous innovation capabilities of enterprises;
- Realisation of breakthroughs in key generic technologies which might substantially increase the country’s industrial competitiveness;
- Solving major issues and bottlenecks inhibiting socio-economic development;
- Promoting and intensifying civil-military integration to further strengthen national security.
A total of 16 vanguard Megaprojects were established. Ten belong to civilian application (“Civilian Megaprojects”); the remaining six belong to civil-military integration or pure military application (“Military Megaprojects”). Among the six Military Megaprojects, three have never been publicly announced by relevant authorities and currently remain classified for national security concerns. A full list of Megaprojects currently existing can be found in the section “List of Megaprojects currently existing” below).
MOST leads the overall management, implementation and supervision of Civilian Megaprojects, together with NDRC and MOF. The State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND), and the Central Military Commission’s Equipment Development Department are the managing authorities for the Military Megaprojects.
Over the past decade, a total of 127.4 billion RMB (around 16.5 billion EUR) was allocated by the central government alone, more than half of which was for the 10 Civilian Megaprojects during the 12th Five-year period (2011-2015). These were coupled by an additional 208 billion RMB (around 26.9 billion EUR) of extra funds provided by various enterprises and local governments implementing specific research activities. Such massive investments have generated an output value of over 1.4 trillion RMB (around 181 billion EUR), and have mobilised over 240,000 scientists and personnel in total, contributing to over 11,000 patents obtained by enterprises and universities, and 8,478 technology standards formulated.
Under the firm leadership of the Communist Party and the State Council, MOST, NDRC and MOF have forged a synergic cooperation chain coordinating the efforts of several other ministries and departments, local governments, SOEs, private enterprises, universities and research structures. The most significant achievements realised can be found in the section “Main achievements of Megaprojects” below.
Note: the Guide for EU stakeholders available for download on this website provides specific case studies for three Megaprojects: ICT, Water, and Large Aircrafts.