The vacancy rate for grade-A offices in the April-to-June quarter dropped slightly from the previous quarter, while rental rates picked up mildly with firms planning to hire new staff and improve operations, encouraged by stable economic recoveries at home and abroad, Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan (JLL, 仲量聯行) said in a report yesterday.
The vacancy rate for top-grade office space dropped 1.5 percentage points to 7.7 percent last quarter while rental rates increased 0.4 percent, the international property consultancy said.
“Taiwan’s leasing market has benefited from a global economic recovery that has encouraged firms to increase office space and hire employees,” JLL said in the report.
The total take-up amounted to 4,445 ping (14,694.24m2) last quarter, with a concentration in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) on the back of leasing demand from companies in financial, technology and retail sectors, the report said.
Those companies showed a preference for small and medium-sized office space, lowering the vacancy rate in the district to 6.8 percent and raising its monthly rental rates by 2.9 percent to NT$3,039 per ping from a year earlier, the report said.
Taipei’s Dunhua area, had a vacancy rate of 8.1 percent in the second quarter, down 0.4 of a percentage point from the previous quarter, driven by demand from domestic retailers and Chinese e-commerce providers, the report said.
Rental rates climbed a tiny 0.2 percent from the preceding quarter.
JLL expects the market to put up a better performance, as nearly 50 percent of Taiwanese, firms particularly life insurers, property brokers and retailers, have announced plans to enlarge the number of their staff, the report said.
Companies have made inquiries about vacant office space in central business districts, the report said, adding that some landlords are trying to attract tenants by offering rent-free periods of up to two weeks.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
RSS