Coca-Cola has broken ground at Sebeta, about 25 kilometres from Addis Ababa, on a bottling plant it expects to finish early next year. The site covers 14.3 hectares. The Reporter put the outlay at 2 billion birr, about 70 million dollars, and described the factory as the company’s largest in Ethiopia. Once running, it is planned to turn out 70,000 cases a day. Bruno Pietracci, general manager of the East and Central Africa franchise, said Coca-Cola and its shareholders intend to invest 300 million dollars in the country over five years, and to hold Ethiopia up as a place for other foreign investors.
The company has three plants in Ethiopia and about 2,200 local jobs so far. With the Sebeta factory’s expected 500 new jobs, the total would reach about 2,700. Daryl Wilson, managing director of the East Africa Bottling Share Company, said spending would go further, to 150 million dollars, because another plant is planned for Hawassa, capital of the Southern regional state. The first bottling plant opened in Addis Ababa in 1959, the second in Dire Dawa in 1965, and the Bahir Dar plant started production in 2016. The Addis Ababa line can fill about 36,000 plastic bottles an hour.
The company has also talked about a "vision 2020" in which it would cover its own energy needs and reach 100 million unit cases, a volume it set beside Egypt and South Africa. The Sebeta groundbreaking was the concrete step in that plan: a new factory on the road west of the capital, a Hawassa site still ahead, and a five-year spending figure large enough to matter in a drinks market Coca-Cola has been in for about 60 years.
Sources: The Reporter