Madrid, April 6 (IANS): The global e-commerce giant Amazon announced on Thursday that it would be opening a new logistics hub in Barcelona that would create hundreds of jobs.

The centre would become the company's sixth logistics hub in Spain, Amazon has four of them in Catalonia, Efe news reported.

The new facility will create some 650 jobs over the next three years.

With the new distribution centre, Amazon seeks to handle its increasing sales volume in Spain, and cover the growing demand experienced by its pan-European logistics network, according to a company statement.

The expansion of its logistics infrastructure will enable Amazon to increase its sales, as well as its capacity to support thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises who sell their products through its third party sellers' web platform, "Amazon Marketplace".

The new hub will cover an area of 30,000 sq.metres, the equivalent of four soccer fields.

The centre is due to be operational by autumn 2017, and will initially hire 200 employees, whose selection process will begin in the coming months.