Late last year, a few days after the government announcement its stimulus package, Coca-Cola said it would roll out its three-year investment strategy in China, also the largest ever by volume in the past 30 years.

"We are on the right track to spend US$2 billion on the right things," said Zhai.

The huge investment is likely to be utilized for setting up new factories, launching innovative products and strengthening the marketing network.

The move shows the company's unprecedented determination in the market. In the past three decades, Coca-Cola has an accumulated investment of only US$1.6 billion in China.

After having opened the US$90-million Innovation and Technology Center in Shanghai in March, Coca-Cola also opened two bottling plants in Nanchang in Jiangxi province and Urumqi in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, with an investment of around 210 million yuan. The company is also building a US$19-million bottling plant in Inner Mongolia autonomous region, which is expected to open next year.

Coca-Cola holds about 50 percent of the carbonated beverage market in China, but in recent years, it began to expand into the faster-growing juice sector, a sector favored by the youth in China. Coca-Cola recently failed in its US$2.4-billion bid for Huiyuan Juice, China's largest player in the sector. Juice sector contributed 10 to 20 percent of its China sales.

(China Daily July 23, 2009)