Coca-Cola opens three new bottling plants in China
The new bottling plants in China are being opened as part of a 3-year $2bn investment in the country that Coca-Cola announced last year.
Three new plants
A total of 1.6bn RMB ($240m) has gone into the building of the plants in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia; Luohe, Henan Province; and Sanshui, Guangdong Province. All three will locally produce international beverages such as Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, and Minute Maid.
Of the three, the plant in Luohe is the biggest. Built at a cost of 900m RMB and constructed to the Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) standard, the bottling plant will be the largest Coca-Cola production facility in China.
Coca-Cola said the investment is aligned with its strategy of developing its presence in the central and western areas of China.
PepsiCo expansion
Earlier this year PepsiCo revealed similar business objectives when it announced plans to invest $2.5bn over the next three years in China. A total of 10 to 12 plants are to be built, with a special focus on the western and interior parts of the country.
PepsiCo is also investing closer to home. It emerged this week that PepsiCo would be spending $7.5m over the next three years to expand its current facilities in Forsyth County, North Carolina.
Gov. Bev Perdue announced that the company would be creating 195 jobs by extending its sales and call service operations of the Pepsi Beverages Company in North Carolina.
The state is something of an historic home for the Pepsi brand, as the first incarnations of the drink were originally sold there by founder Caleb Bradham.
