 While foreign partners might provide technical services and training, the Chinese companies must ultimately be able to function without the partnership.Railway equipment manufacturers in China were free to choose foreign partners, but foreign firms must pre-bid and sign the technology transfer agreement with China's domestic manufacturers, so the Chinese rolling stock manufacturers could comprehensively and systematically learn advanced foreign technology.However, this requirement to sign over all rights to the technology used in the trains was a significant barrier to international involvement in the project, as the companies would lose access to any technology that they used on the trains.In the first round of bidding, 140 rolling stock orders were divided into seven packages of twenty orders each.