On May 20, newly appointed director general of the World Instant Noodles Association (WINA) Wei Ing-Chou stated that China's instant noodle industry will see a future increase in both production and sales.

"Generally speaking, the global industry is headed in this direction, but unlike China, some countries, such as Japan and South Korea, will see a much higher growth in sales rather than in output," said Wei, who is also chairman of Tingyi Holding Corp., China's largest instant noodle producer.

According to Wei, ever since instant noodle products were introduced in China some 20 years ago, the nation has witnessed a fierce, at times even vicious, competition. The Chinese market is expanding, but the industry will experience structural adjustments over the next ten or twenty years. Low-priced products are set to gradually disappear from the market and high-quality, more nutritious options will come to predominate the even tougher competition regarding quality rather than price.

In 2011, China produced a total of 48.4 billion instant noodles packets, with overall sales amounting to 55.8 billion yuan (US$8.86 billion). Between 2000 and 2010, the number of instant noodle producers declined from over 800 to slightly over 80, indicating that the industry is developing towards large-scaled integration.

Koki Ando, chairman of the World Instant Noodles Association (WINA) and CEO of Japan's Nissin Foods Holding Company, said: "The world consumed 98.2 billion packets of instant noodles last year, with China being the largest market, consuming some 43.2 billion packets."Ando hopes that in 2012 global demand will reach the magic number of 100 billion packets.

Wei has expressed his determination to help the global industry achieve Ando's target. He hopes China sales alone will be double those of 2011 in order to reach that figure of 100 billion (packets) on a national scale by the end of 2015. Wei said: "The industry should seek further development in terms of local cuisine, CSR, innovation and efficiency."

Wang Liming, director of the Consumer Goods Department of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that China's instant noodle industry has successfully maintained a rapid growth for 18 consecutive years since 1992, with an average annual growth rate of 20 percent.

Wang also indicated that the Chinese market has stagnated to some extent because due to concerns over the safety and nutrition of the food product, consumer identification with the noodles has been fading. "Since 2008, the production of instant noodles in China has been in decline, down 10 percent in 2008, 3.9 percent in 2009 and 3.5 percent in 2010, respectively."

However, the market recovered from the stagnation in sales during the first half of 2011. The latest statistics show the country has produced a total of 1.98 million tons of instant noodles during the first quarter of 2012, an 18.31 percent increase compared to output over that same period last year.

The industry's production value is bound to hit 100 billion yuan (US$15.9 billion) by 2015. Furthermore, according to the state plan for the food industry during the12th Five-Year Development Plan Period (2011-2015), there will be ten large-scaled instant food producers, with sales exceeding 10 billion yuan (US$1.59 billion).