Chinese market is expected to achieve a high growth again in 2011, after growing approximately 10% in 2010, buoyed by very strong consumer spending among the country's population of 1.3 billion. Among this population, in recent years we have seen a growing interest in luxury brands and concern about food safety that provides ITOCHU, which has strengths in the food business area, with a major business opportunity.
Positioning Chinese market at the center of a global SIS(*) strategy we are advancing in the food business area. In these efforts—based on close collaboration with domestic companies and major local partners—we will open up markets by taking advantage of superior expertise in such areas as food safety management and traceability. Extremely significant strides forward under this strategy was the decision we made in November 2008 to invest in TING HSIN (CAYMAN ISLANDS) HOLDING CORP. (Ting Hsin) and the business partnership we have built with this company, participation in Ting Hsin's management by Asahi Breweries, Ltd. (hereafter, "Asahi") and alliance between the two companies in November 2010.
Ting Hsin is the holding company of the Ting Hsin Group, which is the largest food and distribution business group in China and Taiwan, owning Master Kong. Our aims in strengthening this business partnership are to use our advanced management methods and Japan's outstanding food safety management and expertise in quality improvement to achieve differentiation in China's expanding market—which has increasing numbers of wealthy and middle-class consumers—thereby heightening the corporate value of Ting Hsin together with Asahi, and to use Ting Hsin's operational platforms to develop a wide range of businesses in China and Taiwan's food and distribution markets. Using this recent initiative as a springboard, we plan to develop a global SIS strategy that includes Asia and Australia.
SIS: Strategic Integrated System, a supply and demand system based on customer needs that seamlessly links upstream food resource development and processing, midstream distribution, and downstream retail and sales.

• * SIS: Strategic Integrated System, a supply and demand system based on customer needs that seamlessly links upstream food resource development and processing, midstream distribution, and downstream retail and sales.