Pudong New Area of Shanghai signs an agreement with Swire Coca-Cola on July 31 to relocate its headquarters there. [Photo/eastday.com]

Swire Coca-Cola, one of the biggest bottlers of Coco Cola in the world, signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Pudong New Area of Shanghai on July 31 to relocate its Chinese headquarters to Shanghai, as a move to further expand businesses in China.

According to the partnership, Swire Coca-Cola will make China the priority in its global development strategy and increase investments in Pudong, while Pudong will provide convenient and efficient services for Swire Coca-Cola's investment and development in the area.

Patrick Healy, executive president of Swire Coca-Cola, said that the relocation from Hong Kong to Shanghai fully reflected the firm's confidence in China's economic development and its optimism about the Chinese market.

Swire Coca-Cola has the exclusive right to manufacture, market and distribute products of the Coca-Cola Company in 11 provinces and in Shanghai in the Chinese mainland, as well as in Hong Kong, Taiwan and an extensive area of the western United States, which represents a total franchise population of 728 million.

In 2018, the company recorded total sales of 1.6 billion unit cases with turnover reaching HK $40 billion ($5.11 billion).

In the first half of 2019, the Pudong New Area attracted foreign investment worth $4.22 billion, up 4.1 percent year on year.

Eleven multinational corporations set up their regional headquarters in Pudong in the first six months, accounting for 47.8 percent of the city's total and taking the number of regional headquarters for multinational corporations in Pudong to 315.