ecb2b53f92173883c9d5a596858ed26a.jpg (Photo : china.org.cn)
American multinational beverage manufacturer Coca-Cola Company has announced plans to invest more than US$4 billion in China from 2015 to 2017.
The investment will include building new plants in the country as the company aims to counter competition that has been eating up its share of China's US$69.12 billion soft drinks market.
The planned US$4 billion investment is in addition to the US$4 billion that the Coca-Cola Company has invested in China for the period running between 2012 and 2014, said Coca-Cola's Asia-based spokeswoman Sharolyn Choy.
In November, the Coca-Cola Company opened a new bottling plant in China, bringing its total bottling operations in the country to 43. The new plant in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province is a US$106 million investment, which is part of the soft drink maker's US$4 billion current investment.
Coca-Cola Company Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent said the company's investment in China is important in achieving Coca-Cola's 2020 Vision goals.
Kent said the new 170,000-square-meter plant in Shijiazhuang bottles both sparkling and still beverage lines, including Coke, Sprite, Fanta, and Minute Maid. In the next few years, three additional lines will be bottled in the said plant.
While stiff competition has been chipping away at its shares, Coca-Cola continues to be the leading drinks maker in China. According to the London-based market intelligence firm, Euromonitor International, the company held 16 per cent market share in 2012.
The company currently employs 50,000 people in China, with local hires comprising 99 per cent of the total number. China is the company's third-largest market after the US and Mexico.
During the controversy over tainted food products of New Zealand's Fonterra, Coca-Cola immediately assured the Chinese consumers that all its products in China are safe for consumption.
Coca-Cola immediately issued the assurance because the company used 25kg of the affected Fonterra whey protein for a single batch of its Minute Maid Pineapple Pulpy Milky product.
