Singapore office rents might overtake those of Hong Kong for the first time since 2009, a sign that the Southeast Asian city-state is gaining an edge over its rival financial hub.
Average office spot rents in Singapore could rise 5 to 10 percent next year on the back of a limited new supply, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report.
Hong Kong’s prime office vacancy rate might exceed 12 percent by the end of next year following a supply boom in decentralized districts, analysts Patrick Wong and Kristy Hung wrote.
The contrasting office market outlook reflects the impact of different pandemic management strategies adopted by the cities.
While Singapore is cautiously reopening and work from home remains the default arrangement, it has stopped targeting zero COVID-19 cases and begun easing border controls.
Hong Kong remains closed off to the rest of the world and has strict quarantine rules due to its elimination strategy, which has garnered criticism from global companies.
Singapore’s office market is also benefiting from the “stay-at-home” sectors given the shift in tenant profile in the past few years from financial services to technology, said Christine Li (李敏雯), head of research for Asia Pacific at Knight Frank in Singapore.
Hong Kong has been less competitive in attracting new tenants due to its perceived high costs, she said.
“With the COVID-zero approach on Hong Kong’s part, multinational companies might continue to find challenges in hiring cross-border talent to its shores,” Li said. “That could have weakened the potential recovery trajectory in the occupier market.”
‘BULLISH YEAR AHEAD’: The contract chipmaker set a growth target of up to 29 percent, as it expects to outperform its peers in the semiconductor industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is planning to boost this year’s capital expenditure budget by about 46 percent to exceed US$44 billion, citing strong customer demand for advanced technologies used in high-performance computing (HPC) and 5G-related applications, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said yesterday. The plan marks a record spending for TSMC after the chipmaker budgeted US$30 billion for capacity expansions at home and overseas fabs last year. TSMC is planning to allocate about 80 percent of this year’s capital spending for advanced chip capacity expansion including 2-nanometer, 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer technologies. The chipmaker reiterated that it is on
EMERGING TECH: The semiconductor equipment industry has had unprecedented growth, with increased spending in six of the past seven years, the CEO of SEMI said Global fab equipment spending at front-end facilities is expected to grow at an annual pace of 10 percent this year to a record of more than US$98 billion, with South Korea taking the lead, followed by Taiwan, SEMI said in a quarterly report yesterday. That means that world fab equipment spending is to grow for a third straight year, following a 39 percent jump last year and 17 percent growth in 2020, the global semiconductor trade association said in a statement. The industry previously had three consecutive years of growth from 2016 to 2018, more than 20 years after logging a three-year
Electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) this year expects its number of electric battery swapping stations to outstrip the number of gas stations in the nation following seven years of deployment, a sign that electric two-wheelers are gaining traction. As of the end of last year, Gogoro had built 2,215 GoStations nationwide, mostly in urban areas, up from 1,937 in 2020. The number of gas stations operated by CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) was 2,487. “By the end of this year, we are very confident that the number of battery swapping stations will surpass the number of gas stations
Siltronic AG cast doubt on a planned US$5.3 billion takeover by GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), saying the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action’s feedback so far was opaque and offered no clear resolution on how to win approval for the deal. During recent discussions, the companies did not receive any information as to whether and under which conditions a clearance for the takeover might be issued, the German company said in a regulatory filing on Friday following a news report on remedies the companies have offered. In the ministry’s view “in this case, a mitigation agreement is apparently not suitable
RSS