China has achieved remarkable economic growth in the past three decades and helped more than 600 million people out of poverty. The government has heavily invested in the infrastructure construction and completed the major highway system including both expressway and local highway systems. However, the management and maintenance of the highway infrastructures including roads, bridges, tunnels, and other associated facilities are falling behind the developed countries, and there is no systematic infrastructure management system in the country. With the aging highway network, maintenance needs have increased gradually. In the 1990s, the MoT already found that highway maintenance lagged behind highway construction and encouraged provincial DoTs to explore institutional reform and improve maintenance services and efficiency. DoTs launched a variety of institutional reforms. Infrastructure asset management is an effective tool for managing, operating, maintaining, upgrading and rehabilitating, and replacing the highway infrastructures, which has been successfully used in the developed countries in the last several decades. The WB financed Yunnan Highway Asset Management Project is to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of highway asset management. The project was launched early 2016, estimated to last for 4 years and cost $280 million dollars. The project has 4 components:

1. Highway Asset Management Improvement to establish Yunnan highway asset management system, which will serve as the demonstration pilot project for the entire country;
2. Maintenance and Emergency Response Capacities Enhancement;
3. Pilot of Cost-Effective Maintenance Technologies;
4. Strengthening Institutional Capacities.

HJI Group was selected as the management consultants to assist Yunnan Highway Bureau for the project development and implementation. The tasks included establishing a highway asset management system, construction and contract management for the maintenance center enhancement and the implementation of cost-effective maintenance technologies, and the institutional strengthening and capacity development.