As the "World Chocolate Wonderland," dubbed the world's first chocolate theme park, opens last December in Shanghai, global chocolate makers are ready to impress some Chinese consumers' taste buds. They're massing their forces at the World Chocolate Wonderland, a two-month exhibit till February 19th. 　　Statistics show that it's quite a battle to wean Chinese locals off salty snacks. Averagely speaking, a Swiss will eat over 11 kilograms of chocolate a year. A Japanese consumer eats a little more than 3 kilograms per year. And the Chinese is just 500 grams, which is around five chocolate bars. According to Euromonitor, the chocolate market in China is worth less than two billion US dollars, about the same size as California's. 　　However, foreign firms are now turning optimistic about the potential of the market, as young Chinese raised on chocolate snacks become chocolate lovers. Belgium's "Neuhaus," one of Europe's top luxury chocolate house, is one of them. Neuhaus opened its first store in China, and its development manager Frederic Linkens is hoping for a sweet future. 　　Neuhaus Development Manager Greater China, Frederic Linkens: "The base is very small but it's growing very fast, but it will take still a long time. But considering the size of the market and the volume, the number of consumers that are here, it's still worthwhile coming here." 　　Still, there are some obstacles that need to be overcome, for instance, the lack of cold storage in China.Author of "Chocolate Fortunes," Lawrence Allen: "Chocolate melts and so it needs to go into air conditioned supply chain and air conditioned stores so the market can only be as big as China's number of air conditioned stores and that's growing rapidly but it's still a very limited part of the distribution system here in China." 　　For now, foreign chocolate makers are leading the game, as Mars is No. 1 with over 40 percent of the market share. However, while other foreign firms are preparing to conquer China, they could still find they may face hidden threats of growing local competition, such as Le conte owned by COFCO, China's state-owned food giant. (Reuters, CNN GO)