Beijing, July 13: China plans to open its secretive defence sector to foreign investors next year to help boost its electronic warfare capability, an official newspaper said on Sunday.

China should no longer hide its defence industry from foreign companies, and parts of the defence electronics sector would be opened to investors from abroad, the Business Weekly quoted senior defence officials as saying.

The newspaper said the plan was a joint effort by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (COSTIND) -- a ministry level agency that supervises defence technology -- and the equipment department of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army.

``China's defence sector should no longer be hidden from foreign investors,'' Su Huining, a COSTIND official, was quoted as saying.

The newspaper, published by the official China Daily, did not say which specific areas were identified as in need of foreign technology. But it said overseas firms were crucial to China's plans for rapid technological strides by the People's Liberation Army.China, which once relied on the `people's war' guerrilla tactics of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, has been moving aggressively to upgrade its electronic warfare capability since the 1991 Gulf War demonstrated convincingly that technology could be an overwhelming advantage in times of conflict.

In recent years, Beijing has sought to boost its missile technology as well as communications, radar and electronic jamming capabilities.

The plan to invite foreign investors was aimed at `strengthening international military-related electronic technology exchanges and upgrading China's military electronic equipment,' said Liu Huaqing, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and a senior member of the Communist Party's Politburo. Chin a is proving too honest on its newly avowed policy of `one nation two systems' in its defence sector too with the penchant for privatisation in the defence electronic warfare wing. It had already locked horns with the US over the missile s delivery to Pakistan. The entry of private firms into this strategic sector is a signal to all closed sysstems to open up for greater competitiveness and modernisation in view of the hitech warfare. As part of the plan, the Ministry of Electronics Industry would invite foreign companies to display their defence electronics technology at a industry fair in Beijing next May.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.