The announcement by the US drinks giant demonstrates the expectations foreign investors have in the emerging markets in Asia. China is currently Coca-Cola's fourth largest market and growing at one of the fastest rates globally.

"For the next two to three years ahead, as urbanisation continues, we could keep up that growth rate," Doug Jackson, president of Coca-Cola China, told reporters in Shanghai, according to Flexnews.com.

As the China becomes wealthier, the expectation is that consumers will switch to healthier drinks away from sugary sodas.

For the second quarter's results, sales of healthier soft drinks such as Diet Coke and Qoo, a vitamin C children's drink in China represented the best-performing part of the group's business.

The world's largest soft-drink maker reported net income of $1.85bn, compared with $1.84bn, a year earlier.

Last week Coca-Cola announced that it was investing $80m to set up a new research center and a new headquarters in China.

The center, which will be located in Zizu Industrial Park in Shanghai's suburbs, will mainly develop products for Asian markets and is expected to be completed in 2008.

Coca-Cola last week also began construction of a new joint-venture bottling plant in Jiangxi province, its 36th in China.

Since 1979, the US giant has invested $1.2bn in 23 plants nationwide and claims to have 70 per cent of the soft-drinks market in China.