The B.C. government will contribute $50,000 towards efforts by the City of Vancouver and Surrey to lure Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) here.
Vancouver is among the Canadian and American cities that are trying to woo Amazon, which earlier this month announced plans to build a new second headquarters somewhere in North America.
Amazon has estimated it would need to invest $5 billion and that the new headquarters would employ 50,000.
The problem for Vancouver is that the new headquarters would require 8.1 million square feet of space. Moreover, tech firms in Vancouver already struggle to attract and retain talent, due to Vancouver's unaffordable housing costs.
"B.C. offers unlimited possibilities for tech companies like Amazon," Premier John Horgan said in a news release.
"We have a fast-growing tech sector and several U.S. companies, such as Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Sony Imageworks, have already established a presence here because of the talent base that B.C. offers. Amazon HQ2 is an opportunity to create thousands of well-paying jobs for the people of B.C., which will greatly benefit our communities and the tech sector and create spin-off benefits for related industries."
The Vancouver Economic Commission is co-ordinating the bid process for Vancouver and Surrey and is part of a steering committee that involves the provincial government. Deloitte has been chosen to put together a formal regional bid proposal, which is to be submitted to Amazon by Oct. 19.
