Abstract: Pipeline transportation is one of the five most important transportation ways at present. Corrosion makes the pipeline unsafe and makes the pipeline failure. In recent years, although the great progresses have been achieved in China, there still exists gaps comparing with the world advanced level. On the basis of a great amount of literatures home and abroad and wide investigations on the outer coatings used in China, the authors analyze the situations and tendency of coating material systems worldwide in 1990s, and puts forward some viewpoints and recommendations on the differences between home and abroad in above-mentioned field.