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SUPERMARKET chain Tesco is to run a £50m import centre that will create at least 800 jobs on Teesside.

The new 1.2 million sq ft building, Tesco's first purposebuilt import centre, will be located on 66 acres of PD Ports' land at Teesport.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council gave PD Ports approval for the centre earlier this year, but Tesco has only just been named as tenant.

The centre will create more than 800 direct jobs during the next two years and will also lead to new jobs among suppliers and logistics companies serving the centre.

Tesco is branching out from traditional food lines to electrical goods, many of which are imported from the Far East.

Its centre will be next to an Asda Walmart import base that is already operational.

David Robinson, group chief executive officer of PDP, said: "We are delighted to have signed a deal with the leading UK retailer Tesco to create another major import centre at Tees Dock. We are hoping to see construction start in July with the first part of the new import centre operational by autumn 2009."

Tesco corporate affairs manager Juliette Bishop confirmed the centre would create 800 jobs for local people and said: "We need to increase our storage capacity to deal with the increased levels of imported containerised goods, and building a storage facility at the port removes the need to move stock from the port where it is imported, to a storage facility inland."

Redcar and Cleveland council leader George Dunning said: "We may well be close to a worldwide economic slowdown, but our local major industries, like PD Ports, keep announcing good news story after good news story on the jobs front.

"That means we will be much better placed not only to recover quickly from any slowdown, but it may have very little effect on our Redcar and Cleveland/Tees Valley area at all.

Earlier this year, PD Ports, owner of the 700-acre Teesport site, won planning permission from the Government to expand the site to include a £300m deepsea container terminal in a project known as the Northern Gateway. It will allow direct imports from the Far East and Asia.

At least 5,500 jobs are expected to be created as a result of the expansion, which is expected to be completed by 2011.

6:08pm Friday 9th May 2008

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