Amazon names Doug Gurr UK country manager

Online retailer Amazon on Wednesday named Doug Gurr as the firm's new UK country manager, moving him from the same role in China.

Amazon said Gurr will take up his new job in late May, succeeding Christopher North, who was in March named as the new chief executive of digital imaging company Shutterfly.

Gurr first joined Amazon in the UK in 2011 as vice president of its hardlines division, which covers products such as lawn and garden tools and toys.

He is a former executive of Asda, the British supermarket arm of Wal-Mart.

Amazon is growing quickly in Britain. It said in January it would create over 2,500 UK jobs in 2016.

The jobs form part of an investment by the U.S.-based company to expand its warehouses and delivery network, its research and development (R&D) capability, and build new infrastructure to support its cloud-computing business.

In February Amazon launched its biggest foray into food outside of the United States with a deal with British supermarket Morrisons to offer fresh and frozen goods to customers, in some places as quickly as under one hour.