Coca-Cola to shut HCMC plant as 30-year project term ends

Coca-Cola will cease operations at its plant in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday, when the 30-year investment license for the project expires, the municipal Department of Finance said.

The facility, located on Vo Nguyen Giap street, Linh Xuan ward and operated by Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam, was licensed in September 1995. On February 20, the company made a formal commitment to stopping operations at the site once the license runs out.

Under Vietnam’s 2020 Investment Law, investors must complete procedures to terminate projects when their investment term expires. A separate government decree allows businesses up to 24 months to liquidate assets and hand back land to the state.

To prepare for the transition, Coca-Cola launched a $136 million plant in July at Phu An Thanh Industrial Park in the Mekong Delta province of Tay Ninh.

The 19-hectare factory, equipped with five production lines, has a maximum capacity of one billion liters annually, making it Coca-Cola’s largest manufacturing site in Vietnam.

According to its 2024 annual report, Swire Coca-Cola recorded sales of 155 million unit cases in Vietnam, making Vietnam the company’s third-largest market globally.

The first two were China (1,394 million) and the U.S. (336 million). One unit case consists of 24 eight-ounce servings.

In terms of per capita consumption, Vietnam’s figure was 37 unit cases, the lowest of all six markets managed by Swire Coca-Cola. The U.S. topped per capita consumption with 260 unit cases, followed by Hong Kong with 199, Taiwan with 70, mainland China with 48 and Cambodia with 40.

Swire Pacific Ltd. completed its purchase of the entire Coca-Cola bottling subsidiary in Vietnam in January 2023, marking the Hong Kong conglomerate’s expansion into the Southeast Asian beverages market.