(Yicai Global) Aug. 19 -- Li Ziqi, the only Chinese blogger who has more than 10 million Youtube followers, will build her own factory to make snail noodles for her fans amid a Covid-19-caused rise in the demand for instant noodles.

The blogger, who also has a following on Weibo and Bilibili, and the government of Liuzhou have reached an agreement to cooperate on the famous local dish, Sina.Com reported.

Before this, Li had already launched her packaged snail noodles, made by Liuzhou firms, to be sold at supermarkets and online. Via her Tmall store that opened in 2018, she has also been selling lotus root noodles and hotpot base mixes. In the first six days after opening, her store that had five products on the shelves made CNY10 million (USD1.4 million). By now, the shop makes more than CNY70 million each year in sales.

The demand for the north-central Chinese dish has been soaring amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The city in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region sold nearly CNY5 billion (USD722.4 million) worth of packaged river snail rice noodles in the first half of this year, according to the municipal commerce department. That was four-fifths of the sales of the entire year of 2019. Meanwhile, exports rose by eight times to CNY7.5 million from a year ago.

Liuzhou has promoted the production of instant snail noodles as one of the region's key industries and secured a trademark for the famous noodle soup.

Editor: Emmi Laine