The vacancy rate for grade-A office space in Taipei fell to 13.6 percent in the first quarter from last quarter's 17.7 percent, Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan (
A total of 14,000 ping of grade-A office space in Taipei was absorbed in the first quarter, the international real-estate firm's managing director, Calvin Wang (
"Supported by a low vacancy rate, rents in the Xinyi area may start to rise in the following quarters before the opening of Taipei 101 in December," Wang said.
The opening of Taipei 101 is expected to put up to 60,000 ping of new office space onto the market.
Wang added that a lot of foreign companies relocated their offices to the Xinyi district from elsewhere in Taipei to take advantage of the rent decline of the past year.
The area around Dunhua South Road saw the highest vacancy rate, 20 percent, with a gross achievable rent of NT$2,130 per ping, while the vacancy rate for the area around Dunhua North Road fell to 8.2 percent with a gross achievable rent of NT$2,090 per ping, the company's report said.
Net effective rents -- what a landlord receives after accounting for the various costs incurred by the landlord for the leased property -- for grade-A office buildings, however, fell by 1.8 percent in the first quarter to an average of NT$2,085 per ping, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan.
The company said that the rent decline was most pronounced in the Xinyi District, where average rents fell 2.5 percent. Average rents fell 1.5 percent in the Dunhua North district and 1 percent in the Dunhua South area, which saw the largest rental decline last year, the company's report said. The report added, however, that most of this quarter's leasing activities were focused on other non-core areas.
Jones Lang LaSalle was optimistic about the nation's market for office space, pointing to the economic recovery and inquiries from institutional investors about opportunities in the market.
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