Manila has the second cheapest office space in Asia according to commercial property advisor CB Richard Ellis.
In the first quarter of this year, Grade A office space rental in Manila went for USD 20.22 per square foot. This is a decline of 0.9 per cent from the same quarter last year, however, a one per cent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010.
New Delhi takes the prize for having the cheapest office space in the region at USD 12.55 per square foot. New Zealand’s capital Wellington also possesses some of the cheapest office space at an average rent of USD 23.40 per square foot.
Currently the most expensive office space in Asia is to be found in the former British colony of Hong Kong, with current rents at USD 164.87 per square foot in the city’s Central district.
Tokyo is also among the most expensive cities in the region with office space going for USD 124.71 per square foot. Mumbai is also among the priciest at USD 109.50 per square foot.
The CBRE report stated: “Corporate expansion remained the major demand driver for prime office space in the Asia Pacific region during the first quarter of 2011, with occupiers particularly active in absorbing space in the leading cities of China and India as well as Singapore.”
In the midst of the economic slowdown in the US, where joblessness rates are at 9.1 per cent, and Europe’s massive debt, the Asian region is fairly positive. According to Bloomberg and other economists, China’s economy is still expanding, which positively influences the whole Asian region.
Editor’s notes: According to JLL’s 2022 Premium Office Rent Tracker which tracks office rental values across 134 major global cities and evaluates gross rental values i.e. the net effective rent plus other occupational costs, the cheapest office space in the Asia Pacific was in Hyderabad at USD 18 per square foot, followed by Chennai at USD 19 per square foot, followed by Colombo at USD 22 per square foot.
According to the index, Manila was the 16th cheapest city to rent office space in the Asia Pacific region in 2022 at USD 41 per square foot.
See this article about office stock levels in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) cities.