(Yicai Global) Dec. 21 -- Solar power equipment supplier Daqo New Energy Corp. intends to invest CNY33.3 billion (USD5.2 billion) to build four production bases in northern China to respond to the surging market demand amid price hikes.

The move should diversify Daqo's product structure while improving its capacity of solar cell raw materials, the Shihezi-based company said in a statement yesterday.

Booming solar power plant construction has driven raw material price hikes this year, which brings profits to Daqo and provides it with good reasons and sufficient funds to expand its capacity, the firm explained.

More than 70 percent of the above-mentioned funds should go into establishing two facilities in Baotou in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

One of the two will have an output of 200,000 tons of high-purity polycrystalline silicon each year. The other one should produce 21,000 tons of semiconductor polycrystalline silicon per year. Both of the projects will begin construction in the first quarter of 2022. Their first phases should be ready by the second quarter of 2023.

The remainder of investment, CNY9 billion (USD1.4 billion), should go into two other projects in Baotou. The facilities aim for an annual capacity of 300,000 tons of high-purity industrial silicon and 200,000 tons of organosilicons.

New York-listed Daqo, the majority shareholder of Shanghai-listed Xinjiang Daqo New Energy, is one of China's major polysilicon suppliers with an annual production of about 70,000 tons of the material used in solar cells, per its website.

Daqo has had a stellar year. The firm's net profit jumped almost nine times to CNY4.5 billion in the first three quarters from a year ago, according to its earnings report. Revenue almost tripled to CN8.3 billion.

Daqo's New York-listed shares [NYSE: DQ] were 1.7 percent up in after-hours trading, following a 6.6 percent slump yesterday.

The Shanghai-listed stock price [SHA: 688303] closed 2.4 percent up.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi