Just as Coca-Cola Company headquarters decided to send Caesar and Frank to Hongsawad to investigate the matter,
in Yangon, Hongsawad,
the two major local beverage producers,
Golden Star Company and Sars Company were feeling immense pressure. Over the past few years, Coca-Cola and Pepsi products had continued to enter the market, and they had barely managed to hold them off.
Now, facing Qingye Group, which had come sweeping in like a mighty dragon crossing a river, they were nearly powerless to fight back. After all, the prices spoke for themselves.
Locals, whose incomes were already pitifully low, were extremely sensitive to prices when shopping.
If not for a few specialty products, Golden Star Company and Sars Company would have folded long ago.
But the owners of both companies knew perfectly well that if they didn't find a solution soon, Coca-Cola and Pepsi might or might not be driven out of Hongsawad—but Golden Star and Sars would certainly be finished.
That very day, someone from Qingye Group called them and invited the owners of both companies to Dawei Port.
As soon as they heard, the two hurried to Dawei Port with their trusted aides.
At the passenger terminal in Dawei Port,
Wu De, the owner of Sars Company, was a short, middle-aged man. Beside him stood Jing Hu, the owner of Golden Star Company, a tall, bespectacled middle-aged man.
The two traveled together. After getting off the passenger boat,
they hailed several taxis.
"Driver, take us to Qingye Group headquarters," Jing Hu told the driver.
"To Qingye Group? No problem." The taxi driver glanced at the two men but didn't tell them that Dawei Taxi Company was a subsidiary of Qingye Group.
As Jing Hu and Wu De sat in the car, they looked out at the streets of Dawei Port.