The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made public for the first time a directory of weapons projects that are still in the preliminary phases of research and development. The directory includes weapons for the entire army, the funds for which top 3.7 billion yuan.

The 857-item guide includes three batches of preliminary projects from 2016, compiling the projects of the PLA army, navy and general equipment development departments under the Central Military Commission (CMC), PLA Daily reported. This publication is the beginning of an online pilot program. It is the first directory that classifies projects according to urgency and specific goals. More equipment departments from other branches of the armed services will publish their own directories soon, the newspaper noted.

“Open competition at a preliminary stage assists with weapons procurement...The first-ever directory of such early-stage projects is a practical measure to better integrate civilian and military industries. It will introduce more social resources into the research and development of weapons,” said one anonymous officer with CMC’s general equipment development department.

The military will continue to update the information on weain.mil.cn, a website that was launched in January 2015 in an effort to open China's defense sector to private enterprises and boost competition in military procurement, Xinhua News Agency reported.