While world markets for office space continue their slow recovery from the global financial crisis, Bangkok is found to contain more office space than other ASEAN commercial citiesm including Singapore, according to international property agencies.
One of the agencies points out that Bangkok is thus poised to benefit from implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.
Global Office Market View,a report by CB Richard Ellis (CBRE),says that job growth has a long path to travel in both the United States and Europe – although not in Asia – adn this will continue to slow the recovery of global office markets.
The global firm’s research has found that many office markets continue to experience a “flight to quality”, in which tenants are taking adventage o low rents for prime office space and are seizing the opportunity to upgrade or expand into newer, higher-quality office space.
Much recent office-development activity is occuring not in developed economies, bt in emerging markets where strong economic growth persist.
In 2010,4 million square metres of newly developed office space introduced into the global market was in Asia – 46 perfect of the world’s total.
In 2011, CBRE forecasts that nearly 5.12 million square metres of new office developments will occurin Asia representing 62 percent of the global total.
CBRE said inproved net absorption was recording in the United States,Europe and Asia over the course of 2010, and this trend was expected to continue over the next few years. Each issues of European sovereign debt, the price of oil and the US deficit and debt do not disturb economic progress.
In Bangkok, net take-up for the whole year of 2010 was 70, 373 square metres, while the overall take-up in the Bangkok office market was 6.89 million square metres, up by 15 percent year on year.
The total office supply in Bangkok at the end of the fourth quarter of last year had risen to 7.98 million square metres, a 0.1 percent increase quality on quarter and 0.01 percent, year on year The supply grew by 5,880 square metres upon completion of Sivatel during the fourth quarter.
In 2011, about 135,000 square metres of new offices will be completed.Of this, 75 percent will be grade A office buildings in the central business district.
The managing director of Colliers in Thailand, Patima Jeerapaet,said that Bangkok’s strong position was a springboard from which it could benefit from implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.
“The service sector will be a key factor in the changes that will occur in 2015, and the fact that there is already a significant amount of office space and potential for more is a huge adventage for the city” he said.
Research by Colliers shows that Bangkok has around 7.9 million square metres of office space compared to just over 7 million square metres in Singapore, The other cities of Manila, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are further behind , but not by much, acoording Colliers’ associate director for research Antony Picon. Most of Bangkok’s supply was constructed in the 1990s.
One of the key components of the AEC is an allowance for 70-per-cent ASEAN foreign-equalty participation in all domestic service industries by 2015.
“It will take time for companies to really pay attention to the changes and make pland to benefit from them,”Picon said.
Thailand has many service industries that can compete in the region, such as architecture and IT, but companies must hone the skills of their employees to become true regional champions, he said.
Language skills will be a key factor in all types of business in the future and this is one area in which Thailand needs to move forward, he said.
Source: The Nation
