Top Coca-Cola executives met with a Telangana delegation led by Industries Minister KT Rama Rao in New York in this regard.
A team of officials from Telangana, led by the state industries minister, KT Rama Rao, held discussions with senior officials of global beverage giant Coca Cola seeking to hike the latter’s investment in the state.
Once the plans are complete, Telangana aims to have garnered an investment of Rs 2,500 crore from the beverage behemoth with headquarters in Atlanta.
The beverages giant already has one large plant in Ameenpur established by their fully owned bottling company in India – Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages. In 2020, HCCB invested Rs 142 Crores to expand the plant. Further, a new green field plant is under construction in Siddipet district in Telangana for which HCCB had signed an MoU with the Government of Telangana on April 7, 2022, with a commitment to invest Rs 1,000 Crores.
Vice President (PPGR) of Coca-Cola in New York, James McGreevy mentioned that India is the 3rd largest market for Coca-Cola in the world. “Coca-Cola had significant plans to increase its presence and capacities in India.” As a part of this expansion, in 2020, HCCB invested Rs 142 crore for the expansion of the Ameenpur plant,” said the VC.
The enhancement of investments will be apart from the Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB) plant in Ameenpur and include the greenfield plant under construction in the Siddipet district.
In the interim, HCCB plans to invest an additional sum of 647 crore, leading to a new production line being added at this facility.
In addition, the Telangana government is hopeful of a similar-sized investment in the Karimnagar/Warangal region. All this would mean that Coca Cola would have committed a sum of Rs 2,500 crore in the southern state.
It would be pertinent to mention here that HCCB had announced in July this year the renewal of the MoU it had inked with the Telangana government to upskill an additional 10,000 students in 2023-24. In 2022, the MoU had seen as many as 10,196 students getting upskilled. That was the first year of the MoU being signed.
On a recent India visit, John Murphy, Coca Cola’s President and CFO had, acknowledged the country as the fifth largest market globally. Coca Cola currently operates as many as 25 bottling units throughout the nation.
