Chinese home appliances and electronics maker Midea has announced a new five-year development strategy and said it plans to invest additional CNY4 billion to enlarge its production capacity.

According to statistics provided by Midea, from 2009 to 2010, the company invested over CNY2.5 billion in research and development and capacity expansion. In 2010 alone, it made investments of CNY1.8 billion.

Wang Jianguo, president of the refrigerator business department of Midea's air-conditioning and refrigeration sector, told local media that Midea already sold over 11 million refrigerators in 2010, a sales growth of 70% compared with 2009. In 2011, it expects to sell 15 million refrigerators and the number will reach 28 million by 2015. Since Midea entered the refrigerator sector in 2002, it has become a leading company in the Chinese white goods market.

Apart from the investments in capacity expansion, Midea will enhance its attraction to talents. Wang revealed that Midea's air-conditioning and refrigeration R&D team currently has 500 members and it plans to increase the number to 800 in two years.

Midea previously published its latest performance report and stated that by October 2010, the total sales of the group had been over CNY100 billion. The company said that it aims at sales of CNY200 billion by 2015 and it strives to become one of the world's top three home appliances companies within five years.