SHIJIAZHUANG, April 28 (Xinhua) -- The first phase of a Coca-Cola production base went into operation Friday in north China's Hebei Province.

Currently, a five-hectare area has four production lines and an annual production capacity of 100 million unit cases (one unit case is 5.678 litres). Once the entire project is completed, it will be able to make 250 million unit cases annually.

The base, covering more than 13 hectares, is located in Hebei's Xianghe County and has joint investment totalling 350 million yuan (51 million U.S. dollars) from COFCO Coca-Cola Beverages and Tianjin Bohai Light Industry Group. After completion, it will have nine production lines and is expected to meet demand in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region for the next 15 years.

This is the second COFCO bottling factory in Hebei and its biggest investment.

China is Coca-Cola's third biggest market worldwide, and COFCO became its first bottling partner after the company returned to China in 1979.