The latest move came from Coca Cola, a leading non alcoholic beverage bottler, which would be investing almost $90 million in Kenya, as part of its Africa expansion drive.
The company said the investment is to span over three years through 2018 and aims to increase its product range in the region.
In a statement on Tuesday in Nairobi, the company said the wider
range of soft drinks in the country would begin in 2018, although it
failed to give details of the range of products.
Coca-Cola, which is the leader in the Kenyan soda market with brands
like Coke and Fanta, said it had invested a total of $17 billion in
Africa since 2014, an amount that doubled what was invested in the
continent a decade before.
The group, however, faces growing competition in Kenya from other soft drinks producers like SABmiller and PepsiCo.
Regrettably, the promise of Africa’s biggest economy has turned to
peril with companies drawn to Nigeria by the prospect of a population
bigger than Germany and Turkey’s combined are retreating; and foreign
investors are pulling their money out.
“Our clients, Fortune 500 and other multinationals are all quite
concerned by the state Nigeria finds itself in,” said Alexa Lion, a
senior analyst at Washington-based Frontier Strategy Group, which
advises companies looking at developing nations. “Sentiment has
worsened. There’s a lot of anxiety.”Recall that after four years of trying to gain traction, Truworths International Ltd., a South African clothing retailer, gave up in 2016. It closed its last two outlets in Nigeria, in the southeastern cities of Enugu and Warri. Not willing to tolerate Nigeria’s dilapidated infrastructure, complicated red tap-ism and expensive rent, the company said import and foreign-exchange restrictions caused it to throw in the towel.
“We were happy to lose money for a few years while we developed the business and opened new stores,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Mark, had said in an interview.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was not being able to get
stock into Nigeria. You can’t have a clothes shop with no clothes. With
all the other things, it just wasn’t worth it. It was impossible to do
business.”
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