Global Technology Exchange Program
Asia/Pacific Region
China
With a population of 1.3 billion and an economy growing at 7% annually, China is of enormous strategic, economic, and political significance for the United States, making it a high priority for DOT activities. In 2005, then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta remarked that "the United States has no more important bilateral partner in the area of transportation than China."
Summary of FHWA-China Cooperation
A Memorandum of Cooperation in Science and Technology in Transportation was signed in 2004 between the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Ministry of Communications (MOC) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Memorandum builds on the Agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the United States of America on Cooperation in Science and Technology signed in 1979 and renewed in 2001.
Under this umbrella agreement, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) actively engaged in cooperative activities with the PRC during the 1990’s, which included technical information exchange, hosting visiting Chinese delegations and facilitating the participation of Chinese delegates in FHWA training programs.
In addition, the FHWA’s National Highway Institute hosted several Chinese researchers for 1-year assignments as part of the FHWA’s International Exchange Fellowship Program. FHWA and China’s former Memorandum Of Cooperation identified the following five focus areas for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and professional exchange: (1) highway safety; (2) pavement design; (3) environmentally sensitive highway design, including drainage and storm water management; (4) commercial vehicle size and weight regulation and enforcement and (5) asset management, life cycle cost analysis and public-private partnership strategies in construction, maintenance and operations. In addition to the above, the FHWA has been collaborating with China's ministry in the areas of bridge engineering, pavements and highway safety.