(Yicai) Sept. 22 -- Swire Coca-Cola, the fifth-largest bottling partner of The Coca-Cola Company by global volume, will invest over CNY12 billion (USD1.6 billion) in the Chinese market over the next decade, mainly to build new plants and production lines and install cold drink equipment.

"Swire Coca-Cola has firm confidence for sustained development in the Chinese market,” Managing Director Karen So said. "The company is bullish on the Chinese market's unlimited potential and looks forward to sharing new opportunities and momentum from the high-level opening-up," The Paper reported yesterday.

Swire Coca-Cola has three ongoing investment projects in China, expected to be completed by the end of 2025. The latest one is a bottling facility that broke ground in Kunshan, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, on Sept. 20.

With a total investment of CNY2 billion (USD274 million), the Kunshan project is the largest single investment of Swire Coca-Cola in China. It will have 13 production lines able to bottle 1.6 million tons of drinks a year, expected to create CNY1.2 billion in annual sales.

The other two ongoing projects are a CNY900 million (USD123.3 million) plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, and a CNY1.3 billion one in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

In addition, Swire Coca-Cola plans to add production lines to 25 facilities and install new cold-drink vending machines.

In the future, sugar-free soda water products will become a growth engine for the company, So noted.

China's sugar-free drink market has grown to CNY20 billion last year from CNY2.3 billion in 2015, data from consultancy firm iiMedia Research showed. The figure is set to reach CNY61.6 billion by 2025.

Swire Coca-Cola, a unit of UK firm John Swire & Sons, owns the exclusive rights to manufacture, market, and distribute TCCC products in 11 provinces and Shanghai in the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and an extensive area of western US.

Editor: Futura Costaglione