Looking towards Gibraltar for Employment Opportunities

Since Spain is still the preferred country for Brits to live in, buying a permanent home in Marbella at the Costa del Sol is still the dream of many British people. Around 12% of Brits would like to emigrate, fed up as they are with the UK’s temperamental weather, crime rate and cost of living. Now Gibraltar is building a £45 million World Trade Centre and everyone’s eyes are turned to The Rock for new employment opportunities. Gibraltar is about an hour’s drive or ca. 36 miles/58km distance from Marbella, so it’s a fairly easy commute.
 
Creating Business Opportunities

Spain’s economic woes and high unemployment rate have put a damper on many potential house buyers’ dreams since the country’s property market collapsed at the end of 2007. A new study by uSwitch revealed that ca. 13% of Brits would rather live in Spain. Although France claimed the top position for the third consecutive year, Spain emerged a close second as far as potential British émigrés were concerned, but without employment or business opportunities there’s been little point in making a move, even though house price in Marbella, Estepona or Benehavis have never been more affordable.
 
However, in the next few weeks construction work will begin on Gibraltar’s new state-of-the-art World Trade Centre, which will be the single largest office building on Gibraltar. Construction is scheduled to be complete at the end of next year.

“We have worked extremely hard to design a building which Gibraltar can be proud of...,” said Peter Burgess, spokesman for World Trade Centre Gibraltar, adding that from now on they could “...push ahead with turning that vision into a reality as quickly as possible.”

Gibraltar’s new World Trade Centre will boast a 500-space multi-storey car park, an international café and pleasant relaxation areas and there will also be an impressive tree-filled atrium that will span the entire length of the building.

There is no doubt that this part of Andalusia, which sits just opposite The Rock, will benefit greatly from the employment opportunities the new World Trade Centre will bring. The new Centre will span 15,464 square metres and be the only office building in this part of Europe with a connection to the Europe-India undersea fibre-optic cable. This cable permits 100GB and data transfer speeds of 3.2TB per second, vastly improving on current Internet download speeds.

For those who are tempted by the Costa del Sol’s affordable house prices to sell up in Britain and move to Spain, any large building project like this one raises hopes of future employment and business opportunities. The Centre will need all sorts of supply services and such companies may well be based on the mainland in the Malaga Province rather than on The Rock itself. The Centre will also need highly skilled, multi-lingual staff, so recruits may come from all over Andalusia.

Peter Burgess explained that the new World Trade Centre would “put Gibraltar even more firmly on the world business map and provide local enterprises with the opportunity to promote themselves across the globe through the World Trade Centre Association, which operates on every continent.”

Early Birds are putting in Bids

Some organisations have already “bagged” office space at the new Centre before it has even been built. A European lottery company has already made a pre-let agreement and promises to bring 100 new office-based jobs to Gibraltar and an international bank has also put in a bid for office space.

In addition to the actual World Trade Centre building, construction will start on short-stay residential accommodation to assist with the chronic shortage of such homes on Gibraltar. There will also be an additional 900 square metres of environmentally friendly office space at Ocean Village, a construction project that is almost ready for occupation.

The opening of the World Trade Centre should create a much-needed diversification of business sectors on Gibraltar, which has flourished through industries like online gaming, shipping, financial services and tourism. Ca. 20% of Gibraltar’s GDP stems from just 28 online gaming firms. While mainland Spain has suffered greatly over the last few years, Gibraltar’s economy has grown by an astonishing 35%, of which 7.8% occurred in the period 2012-2013 alone.

A current TV documentary on Britain’s Channel 5 aims to show what life on The Rock is really like for Brits living there and it may well entice more Brits to ditch their damp homeland and move to the Costa del Sol, within easy commuting distance of Gibraltar, where renting and buying property is more expensive.