India continued to feature in the list of world’s most expensive office markets, with New Delhi (Connaught Place — Central Business District) moving up from the 9th position to 5th position with an overall occupancy cost of $183.30 per sq ft, according to CBRE Global Research and Consulting’s semi-annual Prime Office Occupancy Costs Survey.
Mumbai, on the other hand, continues to drop further. The current report lists the city’s CBD — Nariman Point at 25th position. In July, Mumbai was at 20th position. The latest survey provides data on office rents and occupancy costs as of September 30, 2012.
Speaking about these developments, Anshuman Magazine, chairman and managing director of CBRE South Asia Pvt. Limited, said in prime CBD locations the supply of space is extremely limited with almost no new supply expected in the near future. This is especially true for quality office space which has led to occupancy cost remaining high.
The dominance of Asia-Pacific in the top 10 most expensive business locations worldwide continued, led by Hong Kong Central — the world’s most expensive market and five other Asian markets. However, it was a U.S. market — San Francisco (downtown) — that had the strongest year-over-year increase in prime office occupancy costs with a 36.4 per cent rise driven by that market’s hot technology sector.
Hong Kong Central led the “most expensive” list with overall occupancy costs of $246.30 per sq. ft. per year. This topped London’s West End, which had total occupancy costs of $219.81 per sq ft. Tokyo (Marunouchi Otemachi) was the third most expensive market for office space, followed by Beijing’s CBD and New Delhi’s CBD. ) and Hong Kong-West Kowloon (7).
Despite economic headwinds, occupancy costs increased by an average of 2.1 per cent worldwide over the past year, led by the Americas with a 5.2 per cent annual increase and Asia Pacific with a 2.6 per cent increase. Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) continued to be hindered by economic recession in much of Europe and recorded a 0.4 per cent decrease in prime occupancy costs.
