The Financial Times reports: Coca-Cola and its Palestinian bottling franchisee have opened the US beverage group’s first production plant in the Gaza Strip, marking a rare foreign manufacturing investment in the Israeli-blockaded, conflict-prone coastal territory.
On Wednesday, Coca-Cola and National Beverage Company, the West Bank-based bottler of fizzy drinks and juices, inaugurated the $20m project, along with a charitable initiative to provide clean water to thousands of Gaza inhabitants.
They said the plant would employ 120 people directly and create 10 times that number of jobs indirectly through its local supply chain, distributors and retailers. According to their projections, the Gaza plant, as it expanded, would employ 270 people directly by 2019, creating 7,500 jobs indirectly.
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