The city has been selected as the location for a major new customer service centre.

Swansea had to fight off Irish competition to get the call-centre

Having fought off competition from Waterford in Ireland, Swansea will now become a "flagship" operation when it opens in October.

It is the biggest job creating project seen in the city for more than a decade.

There are hopes it will do much to boost confidence in the area following a long series of economic setbacks.

The Welsh Development Agency, Welsh Office and Swansea City and County Council have been involved in negotiations to attract the project.

Business confidence

Welsh Secretary Alun Michael said the decision proved that international companies had confidence in the abilities of the Welsh workforce.

"Success today has been hard fought," he said.

"Team Wales has needed to work cohesively and effectively to bring CWC here against stiff competition."

Initially, 400 jobs will be created with a further 800 full and part-time posts added over the following 18 months.

Using the latest technology, the centre will deal with a range of customer inquiries, sales and billing queries needed to support the digitial TV service to be rolled out across the UK on 1 July.