Office rents this year might grow 3 percent annually after a 2.9 percent pickup last year, as demand from the technology and financial sectors remains strong, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc (JLL) said yesterday.
Average monthly rents rose to NT$2,728 (US$88.47) per ping (3.3m2) for grade-A office space in Taipei in the fourth quarter, a 2.9 percent increase from a year earlier, while vacancy rates dropped to 5.5 percent, the international property consultancy said.
Take-up rates totaled 20,086 ping during the October-to-December quarter, with new buildings almost fully occupied shortly after entering the market, as financial, technology and professional consultancy firms and e-commerce operators looked for better working environments, and relocated to central business districts, JLL associate market director Brian Liu (劉建宇) said.
JLL expects vacancy rates to taper to 4 percent this year, while room rates are to reach NT$2,800 per ping, with little new supply, Liu said.
“Several clients have expressed interest in upscale offices in Taipei, which might only see 4,000 ping added this year,” Liu said, referring to a new mixed-use complex by Huang Hsiang Construction Co (皇翔建設) in Zhongshan District (中山).
The estimate could be overly optimistic, as the developer might turn a higher portion of the complex into more profitable residential units, JLL Taiwan managing director Tony Chao (趙正義) said.
For the whole of last year, take-up rates swelled to a record high of 61,646 ping, pushing up rents in the city’s prime Xinyi District (信義) by 4.5 percent, JLL’s report showed.
The Taipei Dome project could add 10,000 ping of office space if the city government and Farglory Group (遠雄集團) can settle safety concerns, JLL said.
The leasing market seems unaffected by an economic slowdown caused by a trade dispute between the US and China, Chao said, adding that monthly office rents would surpass NT$3,000 per ping in three years.
JLL, which last year helped organize the bidding for the Taipei Twin Towers development project near Taipei Railway Station, is this year looking for developers to renovate the century-old Chienkuo Beer Brewery (建國啤酒廠) and Taiwan Power Co’s (台電) idle plots in Nangang District (南港), Chao said.
Growth potential for the property market is strong in light of ample liquidity and low borrowing costs if buyers and sellers can settle their pricing differences, he said.
Local insurers have up to NT$5.6 trillion in funding for property investments, but have had difficulty finding ideal targets, Chao added.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
RSS