MANILA - Jollibee Foods Corp. founder Tony Tan Caktiong on Friday said he was optimistic on achieving the company’s goal of a 50-50 revenue split between its local and foreign businesses as worldwide sales surge.

The country's largest restaurant operator took full ownership of US burgerchain Smashburger earlier this year. It also has interests in the Asia-Pacific franchise holder of Tim Ho Wan, US-Mexican food business Tortas Frontera, and Panda Express' Panda Restaurant Group Inc.

• Jollibee takes full ownership of Smashburger

"The proportion of our foreign business to worldwide system wide sales will increase from the present 20 percent to 30 percent. We will eventually achieve our goal of 50-50 revenue split between the Philippines and foreign businesses even as our Philippine business continues to expand strongly since our foreign business is growing even faster,” Caktiong said during JFC’s annual shareholders’ meeting.

$JFC CEO, Ernesto Tanmantiong says they expect to spend P17.2 billion in 2019 to fund local and foreign store openings, as well as invest in IT platform for stores pic.twitter.com/eHnIGzOrPr

— Bruce T. Rodriguez (@BruceTRodriguez) June 28, 2019

The company plans to spend at least P17.2 billion this year on local and global store openings as well as investments in its IT platform for outlets, CEO Ernesto Tanmantiong said

A Jollibee store in Madrid, Spain, a Tim Ho Wan outlet in Shanghai and the first Panda Express in the Philippines are among JFC’s projects this year, Tanmantiong said during the event.

The group plans to open 50 stores in Europe in the next 5 years, he said.

• Jollibee’s Tony Tan Caktiong to local businesses: Believe you can become world class

-- with a report from Bruce Rodriguez, ABS-CBN News