Coca-Cola Buys Bosnia Plant

Coca-Cola has acquired a former state-owned Coca-Cola bottling plant outside Sarajevo, according to a Reuters report. Country manager Fuad Strik said the Hadzici plant would become the main bottling plant and distribution center for Bosnia. It will also be the seat of the company's administrative headquarters in the country.

Slovenian company Slovin, which distributed Coca-Cola beverages in former Yugoslavia, used the bottling plant until the war broke out in 1992. Coca-Cola wanted to buy the plant last year but was unable to because of delays in the privatization process and a later decision by the cantonal authorities to accommodate Albanian refugees in the former plant.

Coca-Cola currently produces 85% of beverages that it sells in Bosnia at a plant which operates within the Sarajevo brewery, Strik said. The company will next month present a reconstruction plan to revitalize the devastated plant.