Pepsi eyeing Chinese market at Expo

Zhang Qiang was sipping Coca-Cola as he sat by the PepsiCo-sponsored U.S. Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo on Monday.

Zhang bought the Coca-Cola at a nearby kiosk. However, the U.S. Pavilion is the only venue that visitors could buy Pepsi-Cola in the park.

"I am not fussy about drinking Coca-Cola or Pepsi, but I think both these American firms are keen on expanding their business in China," said Zhang, from east China's Shandong Province.

Zhang is probably right, given Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola's chairman and chief executive officer, said last week the US soft-drink giant will this year open two new bottling plants in China and start building another one.

Coca-Cola is one of the 13 official global partners of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, together with China Mobile, the country's leading mobile phone carrier and China's top steel maker Baosteel.

But PepsiCo could not afford to be absent from the world's biggest exhibition, and contributed five million U.S. dollars to become a highest tier of U.S. Pavilion sponsor together with other leading American firms.

The U.S. Pavilion is one of the most popular ones in the park, and it would hopefully attract most of the expected 70 million visitors to the Expo.

A total of 189 countries and 57 international organizations are participating in the event, the biggest number in the history of the exhibition.

Kent believes China will become the world's largest soft drink market in the near future.

One of the new plants opening this year is in southern China's Guangdong Province, the other in Hohhot, in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The six-month Shanghai World Expo, which opened May 1, has not only stimulated spending on infrastructure; it's also boosting Chinese consumption.

It is also a branding opportunity for both international and domestic companies, Standard Chartered's Shanghai-based economist Jinny Yan told Xinhua.

Under Shanghai's sunny skies Monday, there were long lines to buy a Coca-Cola or Sprite at the Expo park's Coca-Cola kiosks.