Two helicopters attached to an army aviation brigade under the PLA 80th Group Army hover above the grassland during a flight training exercise aiming to hone the troops' combat capabilities on October 12, 2021. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Li Peng)

Signed by Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission, a new set of regulations on military equipment procurement, focusing on war preparedness and combat capabilities, came into force on Monday, with analysts saying that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will acquire the best weapons and equipment that are most needed on future battlefields at a faster pace.

The regulations, comprising 42 articles in eight chapters, standardize the management of military equipment procurement, based on the general principle that the Central Military Commission takes charge of the overall administration, the theater commands concentrate on combat, and the service branches focus on their own development, the PLA Daily reported on Monday.

Pursuing the idea of combat-oriented development, the regulations give clear, concrete measures to generate combat capabilities rapidly, and they optimize management procedures including submitting requests, planning, setting up of projects, the signing of contracts, and delivery and supervision, the PLA Daily said.

One of the core issues that the regulations emphasize is the combat-oriented development of military equipment procurement, which means that the PLA should get the weapons and equipment that are required on battlefields, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Under the new regulations, the Central Military Commission, the theater commands and the service branches will coordinately make procurement requests that they deem necessary to generate combat capabilities, and defense producers will be requested to finish development, production and delivery as fast as possible, Song said, and the process will be optimized to save time.

The aim is for the military to formulate clear requests based on its actual combat needs to arms producers, which the latter can deliver as fast as possible, and then the military can make new demands, according to Song.

The new regulations are expected to ease the limitations of equipment development, with high quality, competitiveness, efficiency and supervision being key concepts, according to the PLA Daily.

With the regulations, the PLA is expected to receive weapons and equipment that are best-suited to actual combat and get new ones quickly as old ones become obsolete, analysts said.

Speaking at a military conference on weaponry and equipment-related work held in Beijing last week, President Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, urged efforts to break new ground in the development of the country's military weaponry and equipment, and to realize the goals set for the centennial of the PLA.

He called for efforts to accelerate the implementation of tasks for the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) and advance the building of a modernized management system for weaponry and equipment.

Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia also attended the conference. Speaking at the event, Zhang stressed efforts to create strong synergy in the development of weapons and equipment, focus on the needs of national security, pay close attention to practical military preparedness, boost science-tech self-reliance and self-improvement, aim to be world-class, and speed up the modernization of weaponry and equipment.