Coca-Cola to open $30 mln bottling plant in Turkmenistan next year
DUSHANBE. July 24 (Interfax) - Turkish Coca-Cola Icicec (CCI) is completing construction of a first Coca-Cola plant in Tajikistan with capacity for 100 million liters of soft drinks a year, Energy and New Technologies Minister Shavkat Bobozoda said at a press conference on Thursday.
The plant, located in Dushanbe, will be commissioned in April 2015. The production facility has been completed and equipment is being installed. The construction project, announced in November 2012, was originally scheduled for completion in 2013.
Investment in construction totals $30 million, Bobozoda said, adding that the plant will put an end to the trade in counterfeit Coca-Cola products in Tajikistan.
Currently just one cola brand is produced in Tajikistan: Royal Crown (RC) Cola at the Obi Zulol plant under license from Canada's Cott Corporation.
CCI has production facilities in three other Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan - and is present in Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria.