Amazon, an American multinational technology which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming and artificial intelligence, has announced that it will be opening its African headquarters in South Africa with a real estate investment of over $279 million (R4 billion).

The 15-hectare parcel of land is located at a new development in River Club, a prime section of the Cape Town and it includes two precincts. The first precinct of 60,000sqm will occupy different layers of development; while the second section of 70,000 will hold Amazon headquarters in Africa.

Business Tech reported that over 5,000 direct construction jobs and 19,000 indirect jobs are expected to be created due to the move.

Cape Town city officials said in a statement;

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

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

Amazon has had its web engineering giant AWS in South Africa for years, but its main e-commerce services have not been available anywhere on the continent.

It is however unclear if Nigeria came up as a choice spot while the consideration was being made.