Beverage and food giant Pepsi will open a bottling plant in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, together with Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp., a Chinese instant-noodle maker.

This is the first joint investment plant in their strategic alliance. The plant will produce bottled water and other nonalcoholic drinks.

At the end of 2011, Tingyi reached an agreement with Pepsi to make Tingyi's beverage subsidiary the U.S. company's franchise bottler in China.

"We have about 25 bottling plants, but now with the Tingyi system, we have over 70 plants in the country," said Tim Minges, Chairman of Pepsi (Greater China).

As part of the company's plans to expand into central and west China, Pepsi opened a new potato chip plant in Wuhan, Hubei Province, on July 10. The plant will produce about 15,000 tons of Lay's potato chips annually.