
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 22, 1993                   TAG: 9309220121
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW DELHI, INDIA                                LENGTH: Short

COCA-COLA TO SELL IN INDIA AGAIN

The Coca-Cola Co. announced an agreement Tuesday with India's largest soft drink producer to bottle and sell Coke, 16 years after the company left India in a huff.

The Atlanta-based multinational agreed on a $70 million joint venture with the Parle group, which controls about 60 percent of India's soda market.

Coke, Sprite and Fanta will join a $350 million market that now sells 2.7 billion bottles of soft drinks per year. According to some estimates, the market is expected to expand tenfold in a decade in this country of 880 million people.

Coke controlled 80 percent of India's soft drink market until it left in 1977 rather than comply with a law requiring it to transfer 60 percent of its equity to an Indian company. IBM pulled out for the same reason.

But multinationals have been returning to India since Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao began opening the economy two years ago.

Parle will continue to market its own cola, Thums Up, with Coke's brands. - Associated Press

by CNB