Amazon to open up African headquarters in Cape Town

The City of Cape Town has announced that Amazon will open up an African base of operations with headquarters in a new development in the city.

Amazon will serve as the anchor tenant for a new development in Cape Town, located at the site of the River Club.

The municipality has approved a 15-hectare parcel of land for development. According to the City, the development will cost R4 billion and include two precincts.

Precinct 1 will be a mixed-use development with a total of 60 000sqm of floor space. Meanwhile, Precinct 2 will be made up of the Amazon headquarters, expected to include 70 000sqm of floor space.

“US retail giant, Amazon, will be the anchor tenant, opening a base of operations on the African continent,” the city said in a statement.

“The development is envisaged to take place in phases, with construction set to take place over three to five years.”

While the company currently operates its AWS business in South Africa, it does not offer its online retail services locally.

South Africans can order products from its website, but need to pay international shipping and import fees. Amazon Prime Video is also available locally.

It’s unclear whether the headquarters will mark an expansion of the company’s retail business into Africa. However, they could just serve as a base of operations for the existing AWS offerings.

Whatever it means, the official launch of the headquarters is still some way off.

Feature image: Yender Gonzalez/Unsplash

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