Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense
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The Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense or COSTIND is a civilian ministry within the State Council of the People's Republic of China, responsible for setting policy for defense procurement. The ministry was formed in 198? to centralize Chinese defense procurement and technology whose responsiblity had been distributed among several agencies.
In the late-1990s, there was a massive reorganization of the Chinese defense industry. The main focus of this reorganization was to separate the purchasing of weaponry which became the responsibility of the General Armaments Division of the People's Liberation Army, the production and development of weaponry which became the responsibility of several different enterprises such as China Northern Industries and China Southern Industries which were state-owned but not under direct state management, and the development of policy for these industries which became the responsibility of COSTIND. Because of the massive change in COSTIND, many analysts refer to the new COSTIND and the old COSTIND.
COSTIND plays an important role in the space program of China as one of its subagencies the China National Space Administration is responsible for Chinese space policy.