Making
every drop count, Coke opens in Afghanistan
By
Terry Friel
KABUL (Reuters) - The blind cleric's
haunting Arabic prayer chant echoed among the sterile
plastic rows of Coke and Fanta, seeking Allah's
blessing for the only major business to open in
Afghanistan in more than a decade.
Coca-Cola, with its distinctive red-and-white logo,
has come to Kabul in what is at once a sign of economic
progress and a symbol of the failure of major businesses
to open up in the five years since the fall of the
hardline Islamist Taliban.
President Hamid Karzai opened the $25 million bottling
plant in the capital's industrial complex of Bagrami,
meaning sweet or fragrant, on Sunday.
Karzai's Western-backed government is desperate
to kickstart an economy independent of the $3 billion-a-year
illegal drugs trade, but has been unable to lure
investors to one of the world's five poorest countries,
where violence has hit a high since the 2001 war.
The plant, which Coca-Cola goes out of its way to
emphasize will produce only non-alcoholic beverages,
is franchised to one of the country's richest men,
Habib Gulzar, and will initially produce Coke, Fanta
and Sprite and soon make bottled water, the company
said in a statement.
During the Taliban's five-year rule, only a pirated
version of Coca-Cola was available in the country.
"Afghanistan is a country promising a lot of
growth opportunity for our company," Coke's
Pakistan and Afghanistan manager, Rizwan Khan, said
at the opening.
The ceremony began with the chanting of Qari Barakatullah
Salim, Afghanistan's most famous Koran reciter,
who despite being blind has memorised the entire
Islamic holy book.
Karzai spoke only briefly, and waved off an offer
of a glass of Fanta.
Although Afghanistan is one of the world's five
poorest countries, Coca-Cola's Southern Eurasia
head, Selcuk Erden, said the country of about 25
million was "the missing link" in the
company's global business strategy.
But the country has no economy and apart from thousands
of well-paid United Nations personnel, foreign troops
and aid workers, few people have money to spend.
The average income is about $200 a year. A small
bottle of Coke costs about 20 cents in the shops.
"Nothing much has been done to develop the
economy. There is no investment," academic,
writer and former cabinet minister Hamidullah Tarzi
told Reuters recently.
"We are living in a sort of artificial economy.
This is completely false because there is no production
and there is nothing you can call investment."
Any business looking at Afghanistan must invest
heavily in security. By some estimates, 10 times
as much money is spent on security as development.
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