US internet retailer Amazon is opening a central London office, bringing 1,600 jobs to the capital.
Amazon will move several hundred existing employees from the company's current offices in Slough to the new 12-storey, 210,000 sq ft location in Holborn by the end of 2013. However, the company will also be hiring.
"This new office location will provide the space we require for hundreds of our existing employees as well as many more that we will hire in the future," said managing director of Amazon.co.uk, Christopher North.
The expansion will facilitate Amazon's plans to begin focusing on new areas, such as book publishing and television production.
Announcement of the new office follows Amazon's opening of a 47,000 sq ft development for its expanding video services division LoveFilm near London's Barbican Centre.
"Amazon has over 6,000 permanent employees in the UK and we will continue to create thousands of jobs in the coming years across the UK," said North.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson called Amazon's Holborn plans "excellent news for London's continued growth as a leading global hub for tech talent".
But Amazon's reputation in the UK is currently tarnished, under fire as it is from MPs and campaigners over accusations of tax avoidance.
The company paid just £3.2m in corporation tax on sales of £320m last year, and currently runs its UK operations through a Luxembourg-based company, under a tax treaty the UK negotiated in 1966.
