According to Knight Frank’s “The Global Cities: The 2016 Report”, Bangkok is a city to watch due in part to its current mass transit infrastructure as well as the planned expansion to it. The report, which focuses on office rental and takeup rates, examines the market performance of 20 cities from across the globe. Ten of these cities are located in the Asia-Pacific region.
The report added that companies continue to search out for new locations to establish operations or increase current operations and one of their primary concerns is convenient access to mass transit. Bangkok, which has an established mass transit system that is set to greatly expand over the next decade, is in a position to become even more attractive to businesses.
Population across the world’s cities is estimated to increase by 380 million in the next five years, according to reports by the United Nations. This means that the world will need to build the equivalent of five Los Angeles’ every year between now and the end of the decade along with the supporting infrastructure including jobs and offices.
The greater demand driven by economic growth in urban areas will most likely cause office rents to rise in the key global cities, Knight Frank estimates. The property consultancy forecasts that Madrid will top rental growth at 22.2 percent by 2018 with Mumbai at 21.3 percent and San Francisco at 20.2 percent following closely behind the Spanish capital.
Nicholas Holt, head of research at Knight Frank Asia-Pacific, said that despite the slowdown in China, and its impact on the region’s economies, the Asia-Pacific region would still see relatively strong economic growth over the coming years. He added that coupled with urbanization in India and China, the next three years should hold a lot of growth in the office sector in key Asian cities including Bangkok.
