China’s largest beverage firm Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. Ltd. is forging a joint venture agreement with the maker of Oishi snack brands Liwayway Holdings Co. Ltd. (LHCL), one of the most successful Filipino investors in China, to set up a fruit beverage manufacturing facility in the Philippines for both exports and domestic markets.

Trade and Industry Secretary Jesli A. Lapus, who attended the Shanghai Expo and the 35th anniversary celebration of the establishment of RP-China diplomatic ties, said he met with the company’s chairman Zong Qing Hou, who is also China’s richest man and the world’s 130th richest according to the Forbes Magazine.

“They are very serious, they are putting up a beverage plant here in partnership with Carlos Chan,” Lapus told reporters. Chan heads the famous snack foods company under the brand Oishi. Aside from its Philippine operations, LHCL operates a big snack food manufacturing plant in China.

Today, LHCL factories are also established in strategic areas outside Shanghai such as Harbin, Hubei, Zhengzhou, Suzhou, Xuzhou, Kunming, Jiangxi, and Xinjiang.

Lapus said the chairman himself informed him of his intention to import “calamansi” (local lime) and mango from the Philippines.

Lapus cited the need to increase the number of Chinese investors in the country saying there are more Filipino investors in China than there are Chinese investors in the Philippines.

Wahaha is not only interested in food but also in the country’s mining sector, Lapus said.

Lapus said this is an opportunity to exports to China because 10 percent or 150 million of the over one billion Chinese population can afford anything.

The Board of Investments has been courting the Wahaha Group since 2009. Last year, the group came over to conduct a due diligence work.

Wahaha, which signifies “laughing child” to the company, had its origins as the sales department of the Shangcheng District School in Hangzhou , created in 1987. The factory, the "Hangzhou Wahaha Nutritional Foods Factory," was created in 1989 to tap a niche in the market for a "children's liquid nutrient."