Skip to footer

Coca-Cola to enter Myanmar for first time in 60 years

Following the US government's decision to suspend investment sanctions. Coca-Cola says it will start selling its drinks in Myanmar.

|
Paul Sakuma/AP/File
In this April 2009 file photo, a customer walks by cases of Coca-Cola at JJ&F Market in Palo Alto, Calif. Coca-Cola, the world's biggest soft drink maker said Thursday, June 14, it will start doing business in Myanmar as soon as the US government issues a license allowing American companies to make such investments, the first time in 60 years.
  • By Matthew Pennington Associated Press

| New York

The Coca-Cola Co. plans to start selling its drinks in Myanmar for the first time in 60 years, following the US government's decision to suspend investment sanctions on the country for its democratic reforms.

Myanmar is one of three countries where Coca-Cola doesn't do business. The other two are Cuba and North Korea.

The world's biggest soft drink maker said Thursday it will start doing business in the country as soon as the US government issues a license allowing American companies to make such investments.

The US announced last month that it was suspending restrictions on American investments in the Southeast Asian country, which is still easing toward democracy. Until last year, Myanmar had been led by an oppressive military junta.

Coca-Cola said its products will initially be imported from neighboring countries as it establishes local operations in Myanmar; the company notes that it is has a history of being the among the first to enter or re-enter markets.

In 1949, for instance, Coca-Cola and other foreign companies were expelled from China by the Communist government. After full diplomatic relations were established with the country in 1979, Coca-Cola had 20,000 cases of its flagship drink delivered by train into the country from Hong Kong, which was still a British territory at the time.

The Atlanta-based company also noted that Cuba was one of the first countries where it did business, opening operations in the nation in 1906. But after the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro's government began seizing private assets and the company liquidated and exited the country in 1960. The company has never operated in North Korea.

Any Coca-Cola products in those countries are obtained through independent third parties.

As part of its push in Myanmar, Coca-Cola said it is donating $3 million to support job creation for women in the country. The company will work with PACT, a nongovernmental group that supports economic and health initiatives in developing nations.

Coca-Cola first entered Myanmar in 1927.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Coca-Cola to enter Myanmar for first time in 60 years
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0615/Coca-Cola-to-enter-Myanmar-for-first-time-in-60-years
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe