Amazon's Hyderabad facility to be ready by 2019.

Amazon's 30 lakh-square-feet development centre in India, its biggest campus outside the US facility, will be ready by 2019. The global e-commerce major has begun work on the 10-acre site in the Financial District at Gachibowli, the hub of global IT and BPO companies.

The firm had opened its biggest fulfilment centre last year near Hyderabad for sourcing of products from the SMBs and catering to the clientele in Telangana. Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao laid the foundation stone for work on the site.

However, David Zapolsky, Senior Vice-President and General Counsel Legal of Amazon, was tight-lipped on the investment roll-out and number of employees the Hyderabad facility might house.

He indicated that this investment was part of the $2-billion investment that Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos had announced for India, to expand its presence in the country.

Sources, however, put the investments at over ₹1,000 crore. It is likely to employ about 14,000 people when the facility is fully operational.

'We have a presence in Hyderabad since 2005-06. With a pool of quality talent, this centre is a natural choice for us to set up our largest campus in India ,' he said.

On the Centre’s move to allow 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in the marketplace based e-commerce, he said the firm’s legal team was looking into the details.

HBL