Coca-Cola Considers Pulling Out of Chilpancingo After Employees Taken Hostage Rafa Fernandez De Castro - Fusion
go to original February 21, 2015

The world’s largest beverage company might pull out of a major city in southern Mexico due to concerns for its employees’ safety.

Following the recent kidnapping — and negotiated release — of two Coca-Cola employees in the southern city of Chilpancingo, the transnational giant is reportedly thinking about discontinuing its operations in the area.

“Coca-Cola is evaluating whether to continue operating in the city of Chilpancingo to guarantee the security of its employees,” Patricia Vázquez, director of corporate communications for Coca-Cola Mexico, told Fusion in a phone interview.

A withdrawal of Coca-Cola, whose distribution reaches into rural communities that are so remote they don’t even have roads or electricity, could be a major blow to the local economy — not to mention a harbinger of more trouble to come. If Coca-Cola decides it’s too dangerous to do business in the area, other companies might follow them out of town, according to Mario Mendoza, president of the American University of Acapulco.

Mendoza says other transnational companies are already being targeted by alleged activist groups sympathetic to the Ayotzinapa student struggles.

Read the rest at Fusion

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