$680m expansion in Guiyang being cooked up by Ting Hsin

A guide?speaks to visitors in Ting Hsin International Group??in Tianjin, July 4, 2012. [Photo/IC]

Ting Hsin International Group, owner of fast-food chain Dicos, FamilyMart convenience stores and instant noodles brand Master Kong, has signed a contract worth 4.2 billion yuan ($680 million) with Guiyang, Guizhou province, in Southwest China to build industrial hubs.

The Taiwan-based company has outlined ambitious expansion plans to build new factories in Guiyang across different sectors, from food production to technology research.

The retailing giant will invest 2.6 billion yuan in the construction of the headquarters of a big data cloud computing center and an e-commerce platform. It also will spend 500 million yuan building a logistics center in southwest China.

Meanwhile, the company will put in 1.1 billion yuan into a new, larger production base for Master Kong.

"We plan to develop a locally oriented instant noodles product with sour-soup fish flavor," said Wei Hongfan, chief executive of Inhontech, an affiliated company of Ting Hsin International Group. "I just tried the sour-soup fish here, a specialty of the Miao ethnic group in Guizhou, and it's very tasty."

The food and beverage manufacturer is aiming for annual revenue of 2.4 billion yuan in Guiyang, where the city has adopted environmentally friendly manufacturing, according to the company.

As an inland city in southwestern China, Guiyang leverages ecological expenditures into economic opportunities. It is home to a number of major industrial parks, including a new factory of Foxconn Technology Group, manufacturer of Apple Inc products.

"Guiyang boasts a great ecological environment, and our industrial positioning of developing big data is closely connected to the orientation of Guiyang," Wei said. "Guiyang will be able to attract talent with the city's target to grow a green and responsible economy."

Wei said he expected to see the fruit of the cooperation between Guiyang and Ting Hsin within the next two to three years.

Chen Gang, secretary of the municipal Party committee of Guiyang, said the company highly values Guiyang's potential as a major consumer market. "Guiyang has a new growth model and would be able to drive the economic development of western China," he said.