DUSHANBE (Asia-Plus) – The State Committee for Investments and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest) says a Coca-Cola bottling company plans to invest $30 million on beginning production in Tajikistan. The company is expected to start producing Coca Cola in Tajikistan next year.

(Pas) Toujours (du) Coca Cola (“[Not] Always Coca-Cola”).
Dushanbe, July 2011.
(Photo: Le*Gluon)

A source at GosKomInvest told Asia-Plus Friday that a delegation of Coca-Cola Icecek consisting of Hussein M. Akin, the company president for international cooperation, Metem Matin, the company director for strategy and commercial development, and Mustafa Meten, director of Coca-Cola Icecek’s office in Tajikistan reportedly met with Tajikistan’s GosKomInvest head, Davlatali Saidov, in mid-November.

According to him, the sides reportedly reached an agreement on a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The source says Coca-Cola Icecek is prepared to double its investments over a decade after starting operations. Coca Cola Icecek already operates in several other Central Asian countries, but currently exports its products to Tajikistanthrough Coca-Cola Bishkek Bottlers (CCBB) and Coca-Cola distributors in Tajikistan.

Coca-Cola Icecek A.S. is an anchor bottler and a part of the Coca-Cola System. It is 20% owned by the Coca-Cola Company and the remainder trades on the Turkish stock exchanges. It is the 6th largest bottler in the Coca-Cola System in terms of sales volume. The company is headquartered in Istanbul.

The company, with its headquarters in Istanbul, is the bottler of Coca-Cola products in Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Jordan, as well as its home country of Turkey.