Swire Coca-Cola pops with more plants across nation

Swire Coca-Cola Ltd, a bottler of Coca-Cola beverages, will continue to increase its investment in China and add 20 production lines, with its long-term confidence in the Chinese market remaining intact, given China's vibrant consumer market and increasing demand from the nation's shoppers.

The company plans to invest more than 5.5 billion yuan ($819 million) in plant infrastructure over the next five years and expand digital production lines in its 18 factories across the nation, said Karen So, managing director of Swire Coca-Cola, adding the company is always full of confidence in the development prospects in the Chinese market.

Swire Coca-Cola announced in January that it would invest 1.25 billion yuan to build a new production base in Guangdong province, including 12 beverage production lines, warehouses and support facilities, which is the largest single investment by the company in China so far.

Last year, it invested no less than 900 million yuan to build a new plant in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, which is expected to go into operation within two years, with an annual production capacity of up to 1 million metric tons.

The company will further accelerate digital upgrading in its manufacturing facilities and bolster the digitalization of China's beverage industry in collaboration with German conglomerate Siemens AG. The first digital production line of Swire Coca-Cola in China went into operation in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, in March 2021.

"Over the next two years, we will install a manufacturing information system at 18 plants with nearly 100 production lines nationwide," So said. The system can collect real-time data during production, undertake dynamic data analysis in efficiency and energy consumption, and help optimize production information monitoring and analysis.

"In the past two to three months, our sales from major channels like supermarkets, stores and restaurants have been affected by the COVID-19," she said, noting they have seen very positive growth following the gradual resumption of work and production in Shanghai since June. "We have strong confidence in the recovery of the Chinese market, and our long-term investment in China remains unchanged."

So said the company will speed up the digitalization push and enrich its product portfolio to satisfy the diversified demand of consumers and achieve the sustained growth of the business.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, retail sales of consumer goods, a significant indicator of China's consumption strength, stood at 17.17 trillion yuan, down 1.5 percent year-on-year in the first five months of this year. In May alone, retail sales decreased 6.7 percent from a year ago to 3.35 trillion yuan mainly due to the resurgence of domestic COVID-19 cases.

The company also released its 2021 sustainable development report, saying it has made significant progress in reducing carbon emissions, investing in photovoltaic installations and increasing the proportion of energy from renewable sources.

The efforts are expected to help achieve the nation's goal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, it added.

As the fifth-largest bottling group in the Coca-Cola system globally, Swire Coca-Cola has partnered with The Coca-Cola Company for more than 50 years. It manufactures and distributes soda, tea, coffee, energy drinks and other beverages across the nation.

With the ongoing sugar-free revolution in non-alcoholic drinks, natural ingredients are playing sugar's role in catering to consumer needs, said Roolee Lu, senior research analyst at Mintel.

China's huge consumption market is attracting an enormous volume of foreign investment, said Zhang Jianping, director-general of the Beijing-based China Center for Regional Economic Cooperation.

The implementation of a new round of opening-up measures, such as the Foreign Investment Law, the shortened negative list for market entry and pilot free trade zones have created favorable conditions for foreign businesses to invest in the world's second-largest economy, he added.

The Ministry of Commerce said the actual use of foreign capital expanded 17.3 percent year-on-year to 564.2 billion yuan in the first five months of the year.