As part of its effort to boost sales in China, Coca-Cola Co. to invest 80 million U.S. dollars in a new China headquarters and research-and-development center in Shanghai, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The R&D center, expected to be finished by the end of 2008, will be one of six world-wide and will develop products for China and other markets, the report quoted Douglas Jackson, the company' s president for China business as saying.

With its completion, Coca-Cola will increase its R&D staff in China to 200, from 40 now.

In the past five years, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola has roughly doubled its sales volume in China, making the country its fourth- largest market, behind the U.S., Mexico and Brazil, said the report.

In 2006, Coca-Cola China sold more than a billion unit cases of nonalcoholic beverages. Coca-Cola said it has an 11 percent share of China's nonalcoholic-beverage market.