Soon after US beverage giant Coca-Cola officially announced its entrance into China's dairy beverage market on Monday, the company on Friday followed with a remarkable expansion of its largest single investment for strengthening its still beverage business in China.

With a total investment of 600 million yuan ($87.89 million), Coca-Cola opened a bottling plant in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, which will be operated by the most advanced still beverages producing technology in the Coca-Cola system globally.

It is the 39th facility to bottle Coca-Cola's products across China, and the 10th opened bottling plant for manufacturing Coke's still beverage products, with annual production capacity of 45 million unit cases of Coke's still beverage products (which is equal to 1 billion bottles of beverages), according to the company.

With the expansion of still beverages manufacturing capacity at the Wuhan plant, Coca-Cola would achieve the annual still beverages production capacity of 300 million unit cases by this year, an increase of 80 million unit cases compared with previous years.

"Today, still beverages are growing to contribute more than 30 percent of Coca-Cola's sales in China, the world's second-largest beverage producer after the US," said Doug Jackson, president of Coca-Cola China.

"China has also clearly shown the potential in the still beverage market as the Chinese consumers maintained high demand in non-carbonated drinks."

The world's leading beverage giant has already built up a strong network for manufacturing its still beverage products in 11 cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen in Fujian province and Dongguan in Guangdong province, as well as the newly opened facility in Wuhan.

The Wuhan bottling plant will be used to produce bottled water, tea and fruit juice beverages, as well as the newly launched juicy dairy beverages.

"Minute Maid juice will continue to be the focus for Coca-Cola to expand its still-beverage business in China, since it has grown to be the number one brand in the low-juice content beverage market since 2007," said Chen Jing, an analyst from Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Ltd.

Ren Jiliang, a senior director of Coca-Cola Bottlers Manufacturing (Dongguan) Company Ltd, said: "In the Wuhan plant, two of the four production lines will be used to make Minute Maid Pulpy Super Milky and its related juicy dairy products."

An unnamed industry insider commented that the newly established plant was a signal of Coca-Cola's expectation to drive further business growth in China's still beverage market after its failed bid to buy the Huiyuan group.

The company might not give up China's pure juice market in the coming future, although Jackson refused to mention the timetable for entering into the sector.

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