Stakeholders of China's instant noodles industry underlined the urgency to establish a national association to ensure the industry's sound and sustainable development, prior to the 8th World Instant Noodles Summit to be held on May 19-21 in Tianjin, China.

After 20-plus years' efforts, China is now the largest country in terms of instant noodle production and consumption. Its annual output hit more than 42 billion packets, accounting for about 50 percent of the world's total.

According to the World Instant Noodles Association (WINA), about 98.2 billion packets/cups of instant noodles were eaten worldwide in 2011, with China consuming some 42.5 billion packets/cups, accounting for about 43 percent of the world's total.

However, the country has yet to form an industrial association to help its instant noodle manufacturers to rival their foreign counterparts in industrial standards, enterprises' self-discipline and coordinated development. This has become an obstacle for Chinese makers to go global, as the summit is to be held by the enterprise Tingyi Holding, rather than by an industrial association as practiced in other countries.

The growing industry is actually encountering slipping profits in recent years due to the rising costs of raw materials, logistics, labor and marketing. Moreover, small enterprises are faced with greater risks arising from inflation pressures and tight monetary policies. The industry has even been criticized for trying to raise the prices. Seeing this situation, more experts and businesses pointed out that it's urgent to put on the agenda the founding of an industrial association at the summit.

"We need an industrial association as an independent party to convey the correct knowledge to consumers when there's a crisis that may demonize the whole industry," said Wang Shiqi, an operation coordinator from Tingyi Holding. He said, "The industrial association will make it possible that all manufacturers can share their expertise and resources in technology, product innovation and branding promotion in a timely manner, so that the whole industry can pursue common prosperity in fair play.

Wang added, "such an organization will also help form unified industrial standards and technical regulations to monitor the whole market and raise the overall development of the industry. Accordingly, food safety risks will be minimized."

Hou Xingfu, general manger of Jinmailang Foods, said, "the industrial association will become a driving force to help all makers carry out technological upgrading and quality improvement, so that the whole industry will be upgraded to fulfill greater market values."

Zhang Baiqing, chairman of Tingyi for North China, said that Tingyi aimed to help consumers to have a better understanding about instant noodles and support the development of the whole industry by setting up an instant noodle impression museum at its Tianjin plant. He said, "It's hoped that China could establish its own manufacturers association to promote good operation methods to help reduce food safety risks and ensure the industry's sustainable development."

Early last year, 20 businesses wrote to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, calling on the government to strengthen guidance and management on the industry and for the establishment of an industrial association.