DUSHANBE, November 23, 2012, 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.

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, here 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 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.

Coca Cola Icecek already operates in several other Central Asian countries, but currently exports its products to Tajikistan.