By Andrew Starke
Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) group managing director Terry Davis has praised the Government’s stimulus package to encourage business investment but criticized its ‘short-term’ approach.
Businesses have until the end of the tax year to take advantage of tax cuts on investment in new operations, equipment or transport.
Davis said CCA was in the process of undertaking a number of projects aimed at saving costs and increasing efficiency, including the construction of fully-automated warehouses and new beverage production lines.
“The main projects we’ve targeted to take advantage of the Federal Government’s tax concessions by June 30 include equipment for new beverage production capacity,” he said.
“CCA believes the Government’s investment allowance is very useful in the short-term. However we would have liked to have seen a longer period of time for the initiative, so that companies can take the longer term view and bring forward significant expenditure projects.”
Davis added that CCA would also like to see permanent accelerated depreciation for the Australian manufacturing industry, including for environmental projects such as the installation of solar power and water efficient technologies in our operations.
“This would provide a long-term legacy and sustainable value to the Australian economy by creating further investment, greater production efficiencies and jobs, and reduce the trend towards outsourcing manufacturing overseas,” he said.
CCA’s share price stood at $8.50 at 2:00pm today (Jun 24), down from $8.65 seven days ago.
To read an earlier news piece by TheShout on the stimulus package, click here.