Abstract
Chinese "Economic Reform and Opening up" policy was started in 1978; in the same year, the Coca-Cola Company returned to the Mainland market, becoming the first foreign enterprise who entered Mainland China after 1949. Therefore, its 30-year exploration can be regarded as an epitome and reflection of foreign direct investment in China. In the following chapters, I would like to focus on three aspects: Coca-Cola's return journey; its strategies in Chinese market and the competition against local players. As we already had the example of KFC in China I found it interesting to focus on the example of another international company in China, especially because Coca-Cola is the first one to enter Mainland's market.
In 1927, the Coca-Cola Company made its Chinese presence with two bottling plants established in Shanghai and Tianjin. Three years later the third plant was added in Qingdao. The Shanghai plant ranked as the largest Coca-Cola bottling plant outside the United States in 1933 and became the first plant outside the United States to sell one million cases annually in 1948.
With the foundation of People's Republic of China (PRC), all foreign companies were asked to leave. The Coca-Cola's plants in the Mainland were nationalized and the equipments were used for the production of local soft drink.
