Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Limited (CCBPL), a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Icecek (CCI), aims at to increase its 275 million unit-case capacity by 1.5 times by 2017, with investment of over US 300 million dollars to build three plants in Multan, Islamabad and Karachi.
The company is making this huge investment keeping in view the facts that 64 percent of the 185 million inhabitants of Pakistan are under the age of 30 and population is expected to increase over the next five years to 200 million, with less than 30 years old ballooning to 120 million. Believing in the potential of Pakistani market, CCI, together with the Coca-Cola Company, aims at to increase its capacity.
This was disclosed by the Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan (Ltd) Director Public Affairs and Communications Zafar Abbas Jafri while talking to a group of journalists during their visit to company's bottling plant near Lahore on Thursday. Zafar said CCBPL was established in Pakistan in 1996 and is authorised to manufacture, sell and distribute products under the trademarks of the Coca-Cola Company, USA. CCBPL operates six plants across Pakistan, employing more than 4,000 people, and creates employment for 35,000 people throughout its supply chain in Pakistan. In addition, approximately 100,000 people are indirectly employed by other relevant businesses involved with the Coca-Cola system in Pakistan.
CCBPL is a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Icecek (CCI), which is the sixth largest bottler in the Coca-Cola system in terms of sales volume. Headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey, CCI employs 11,000 people and has a total of 23 plants, offering a wide range of beverages to a consumer base of close to 370 million people in Turkey, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Tajikistan.
As one of the largest Turkish investors operating in the food industry in Pakistan, CCI's operations began there with its 2008 acquisition of 49 percent of the shares of Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Ltd. Today Pakistan is the second largest CCI territory after Turkey, Zafar Abbas Jafri disclosed proudly and added according to 2013 year-end results, Pakistan constitutes 19 percent of the total production volume of CCI. In 2013 CCI grew by 22 percent in Pakistan, reaching a sales volume of more than 200 million unit cases. For the first six months of 2014, CCI's sales volume was 16 percent higher than for the same period in the previous year.
CCI has been continuously improving both its commercial operations as well as its environmental sustainability practices in Pakistan. Since 2008, it has increased its market share by 30 percent and doubled its sales volume. The Coca-Cola system has invested more than US 350 million dollars in Pakistan during the past five years, he added.
He further stated that the company had managed to decrease the amount of water used for the production of one liter of product by 37 percent and the amount of energy by 12 percent under improvement projects. The company's Clean Water project has been initiated with the aim of providing access to clean water to more than 500,000 people by the end of 2015, he concluded.
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