VALUE Clause in COBOL

VALUE Clause:

The value clause defines the initial value of the data item. Generally, initialization will be done just before the first statement in the procedure division is executed. It has the following syntax:

VALUE is literal

The literal can be any numeric value, a non-numeric string of characters included within the quote(“) or any figurative constant.

Examples:
1. 01 a pic value is 100
2. 01 compname pic x(15) value is “ABC Company”