By Sun Xingwei and Du Shuguang

Beijing, May 20 -- Recently, the Logistic Support Department of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), together with seven national ministries and commissions, jointly issued a notice on the pilot program for regionally centralized procurement of military non-staple food in Zhejiang Province, Zhangzhou City in Fujian Province, Qingdao City in Shandong Province, Hubei Province, Hainan Province, and Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region.

A chief of the Military Energy Bureau of the CMC Logistic Support Department said that, the pilot program serves as an important move to promote the reform of the military food supply. The move aims to break the traditional supply mode of self-contained procurement for various brigades and regiments and to build a new mode with features that troops propose demand, local government sets up a platform, and qualified enterprises undertake the supply responsibility. It will involve multiple aspects, including the operating mechanism, organization, supervision, supplier selection, supply chains at wartime, food security, confidentiality in the supply of military non-staple food, etc.

Military non-staple food is an important material support for combat capability. The move to maximize the use of social resources by depending on regionally centralized procurement is bound to free troops from the cumbersome supply affairs to focus more on combat readiness, thus conducive to realizing the goal of building a strong military in the new era.

Meanwhile, the pilot program will also facilitate local economic development and poverty alleviation. The precise demand proposed by the military is handed over to the local government, in line with the principle that anything can be fulfilled locally could be entrusted to local governments.