Mayor says Toronto reaping benefits from failed Amazon HQ2 bid

Toronto may not have won the right to host Amazon's next corporate headquarters, but Mayor John Tory says taking part in the competition nonetheless represented a victory.

In a statement on Tuesday, Tory said the process of bidding for Amazon's huge expansion, dubbed HQ2, has raised the city's profile around the world as a tech hub.

"We know the Toronto Region has already received an extraordinary dividend from this process the downloading of our bid book some 17,000 times around the world by people considering Toronto as the place to locate or grow their businesses," Tory said.

The mayor added the company that co-ordinated the bid estimates the process amounted to $143 millionin advertising for the area.

He saidGlobal Toronto is also in touch with Amazon for unspecified "follow-up opportunities."

City 'beacon for investment'

"Right now, Toronto is a beacon for investment, for smart people and for global companies. Our city is booming and this process has allowed us to tell that success story the story of our tech industry and our ability to foster that industry around the world."

The bid from Toronto and surrounding municipalities was the only Canadian proposal to make Amazon's short list for HQ2consideration.

The company received 238 bids from across North America, but cut the list down to 20 cities earlier this year.

On Tuesday,it announced that HQ2and the 50,000jobs that come with it will be divided between New York City and Arlington, Va.