Area Development
Coca-Cola announced yesterday that it plans to build a new bottling plant in Malaysia, an investment of $302 million. The plant, according to an AP report published at Manufacturing.net, is expected to be operational by 2011, and will directly create 600 to 800 jobs, and another 6,000 to 8,000 with local suppliers.

The expansion results from Coca-Cola's "amicable separation" from longtime bottler Fraser and Neave of Singapore, according to Glenn Jordan, president of Coca-Cola's Pacific Group. The contract, worth $127 million per year, will expire in September 2011. Coca-Cola will use a third of the $302 million investment for an eco-friendly plant in the southern Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan.

International sales boosted Coca-Cola's fourth quarter profits by 55 percent, the company said last month. Asia accounts for 18 percent of Coca-Cola's global sales, and the company expects Asia to be its biggest driver of growth this decade.