NEW INVESTMENTS by two companies in Galway will create 90 jobs, details of which were announced yesterday. Some 50 jobs are being generated as part of an €11 million research and development investment in Hewlett Packard’s (HP) base at Ballybrit.

An additional 40 jobs will be created by online retail company Buy.com, which plans to open its European operations centre in Galway. Both investments are supported by IDA Ireland. HP plans to establish a centre of expertise for cloud computing services in product track, trace and authentication at Galway. It also intends to establish a research, development and innovation group as part of the €11 million investment.

The company employs over 4,000 people in Leixlip, Dublin, Galway and Belfast and is one of the largest multinationals in the State. About half of the new Galway jobs have been filled, and the intention is to fill the remainder “as soon as possible”, a spokeswoman said. The Buy.com positions are in multilingual customer support, online sales and marketing, finance and software design and development. Buy.com is a north American-based online retail marketplace, which says it has over 12 million customers worldwide.

The company’s chief executive and president, Neel Grover, said Galway was selected for its European operations centre because of “its multilingual skilled workforce”, due to Ireland’s position in the European market and the presence of other internet firms.