Combining traditional food materials of the Han people with Miao and Dong ethnic groups, river snail rice noodles, or "Luosifen" in Chinese, is a dish of rice noodles boiled with pickled bamboo shoots, dried turnip, fresh vegetables and peanuts in spiced river snail soup.[Photo/VCG]

In order to meet market demand, Yao built a new plant with an area of more than 7,000 square meters at the end of last year and imported equipment to ensure that the company's daily capacity can reach 40,000 packages.

Yao has benefited from Liuzhou's economic transformation as traditional industries like steel, plagued by excess capacity and decreasing demand, are losing steam. Support for emerging sectors is a priority on the government's agenda.

Statistics from Liuzhou's government work report showed that its GDP growth was 8 percent in 2015, lower than the yearly growth of 9.8 percent on average between 2011 and 2015, due to a sluggish secondary industry.

Its modern tertiary sectors, led by the service sector and tourism, have started to make bigger contributions to the economy, accounting for around 36 percent of the city's GDP last year, compared with 28 percent in 2010.