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Amazon Will Invest €200M In Its New Centre In Barcelona

29 June 2016 – Expansión

Amazon’s new logistics centre in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona) will be ready in the autumn of 2017. Yesterday, the US multinational e-commerce giant completed the acquisition of land covering 150,808 sqm, next to the airport, from the Generalitat for €30 million. It also announced that it will hire 1,500 direct workers between now and 2020.

This represents the largest investment in terms of job creation in Cataluña in the last five years. The project, financed in its entirety by the group, will absorb a budget of more than €200 million, including the cost of the land, according to sources from Amazon.

The e-commerce giant, founded by Jeff Bezos, will construct a logistics platform in El Prat with a surface area covering more than 60,000 sqm, the equivalent of eight football pitches. It will be its second largest warehouse in Spain, after its complex in San Fernando de Henares (Madrid), which it acquired in 2012. That site has a surface area of 28,000 sqm but Amazon is currently working to expand those facilities, which means that the two centres will be around the same size.

Amazon’s Catalan platform will allow the company to cope with its strong growth, satisfy future demand and ensure that its deliveries to clients are fast and reliable. The centre at El Prat will not only supply the Spanish market, it will also handle orders from across Europe, given that the complex will be incorporated into Amazon’s European logistics network, comprising 29 centres located in seven countries and capable of supplying customers with the more than 132 million products available in its online megastore.

Amazon Fulfillment, the group’s logistics company, has hired the construction company Dragados – which forms part of the ACS Group – to carry out the building work, which will start on Friday. The aim is that this centre will be operational by the autumn of 2017 and it will open with an initial workforce of 500 people. That figure will gradually increase over the next three years, to reach 1,500 people by the end of 2020.

Original story: Expansión (by S. Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake