Africa-focused investor Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) said it is buying 33 per cent of Atlas Bottling Corp, an Algerian firm which bottles PepsiCo Inc's drinks.

ECP is buying the stake from Group Mehri, a prominent Algerian business family which owns Atlas, ECP said in a statement, without specifying how much it would spend on the acquisition.

The investment is part of an $80 million expansion plan at Atlas, which will use the money from ECP and debt from commercial banks to increase its bottling capacity, build a new production site and develop new product categories, ECP said on Friday.

Outside the oil and gas sector, foreign investment in Algeria's economy has been limited by bureaucratic obstacles and legal restrictions but the authorities are now showing signs of opening the largely state-controlled economy up to wider foreign investment.-Reuters