The General Office of the Ministry of Transport ("MOT") has recently issued the Interim Administrative Measures for the Open Sharing of Major Infrastructure and Large-scale Instruments Used for Transport Scientific Research (the "Measures") which will take effect from March 1, 2019 and remain valid for five years.
The Measures provide that, in principle, scientific facilities and instruments fully or partly invested or purchased with fiscal funds shall be made public and shared, adding that separate special provisions in this regard, if any, set out in relevant laws, regulations and administrative measures, shall prevail. Also, the Measures require that management units shall, within 30 working days from the date when scientific research facilities and instruments are fully primed and ready for use after installation and acceptance inspections, submit information regarding those scientific research facilities and instruments for which the sharing requirements are fulfilled, to the sharing platform, and such information will be released after being reviewed by supporting management agencies. Moreover, the Measures stipulate that, management units making public and sharing scientific research facilities and instruments, may either charge fees under the cost recovery and non-profit principles, or set up a fee standard in a market-oriented manner.