Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, the world's two soft drinks giants, are still investing tens of millions of dollars in expanding their Romanian-based production facilities.
Coca-Cola HBC Romania, the Romanian subsidiary of the Greek bottling company, is about to complete a 38 million-euro investment plan, aimed to expand its bottling capacity and to build new storage facilities, the company's officials say.
In its turn, Quadrant Amroq Beverages, the bottling company for PepsiCo in Romania, yesterday said it would invest another 4.5 million dollars in its Bucharest-based plant, after having just completed a seven million-dollar investment in a new bottling plant located in Covasna.
In both cases, the investments were fuelled by surging demand.
"In 2004, Coca-Cola HBC Romania embarked on a strong investment programme totalling 38 million euros, which has largely been implemented. The expansion was designed as early as last year, in order to cover the growing market and to launch a greater variety of flavours and of bottled packages," said Mugurel Radulescu, the company's foreign relations manager.
"The increase in the production capacity has been triggered by about 30% higher sales volume logged by the company in the first quarter of this year," says Florin Radulescu, general manager of QAB Romania.
According to the latest market surveys, the consumption of soft drinks went up 8% in terms of volume last year, to almost two billion litres, with a 10% growth forecast for this year.
Estimated at 500 million euros, the Romanian soft drinks market is disputed by the two huge companies, with other competitors including the local European Drinks group.
Of the 38 million euros invested this year by Coca-Cola HBC Romania, 10 million euros were directed at the company's Ploiesti-based factory, being invested in production capacities and warehouses.
"The production capacity of the Ploiesti-based plant has doubled after the investment was implemented," Mugurel Radulescu stated.
Last year, Coca-Cola HBC Romania registered sales worth 195 million euros, up 44.7% from 2002. Gross profit amounted to 18 million euros, twice the level posted in 2002.
The company has eight plants in five locations - Bucharest, Ploiesti, Timisoara, Iasi, Vatra Dornei (where three factories are headquartered) and employs about 2,800 people.
In the case of QAB, the new production line is the eighth installed at its Bucharest-based plant and will have a bottling capacity of 80 million litres of soft drinks annually.
The investment will be finalised in August, with the new line to be used to bottle Pepsi, Prigat and Lipton Ice Tea.
The turnover of American group QAB was 74.2 million dollars in 2003, up 45.8% from the previous year. Last year's profit amounted to some 4 million dollars.
"The line is highly automated and it only takes nine persons per shift to operate it," Florin Radulescu explained.
The equipment was bought from suppliers such as Krones, Robopack and Zecchetti.
georgiana.stavarache@zf.ro
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