The volume of commercial real estate investments in the Chinese mainland reached USD7.3 billion in the third quarter of 2021, and the full-year amount is expected to surpass that of 2020, a report released by global real estate advisor JLL said. The combined volume of commercial real estate investments in the first three quarters in the Chinese mainland amounted to CNY170 billion, and JLL predicted the full-year figure will exceed that of 2020, when it nearly hit CNY200 billion. Accounting for 49% of the total volume in the third quarter, Shanghai remained the top destination for commercial real estate investments across China. The weight of Beijing and Guangzhou declined to some extent from the previous quarter while Shenzhen recorded a significant increase to 7.3% of the total.
“The vibrant city of Shanghai is full of opportunities and takes the lead among Chinese cities in many aspects,” said Kamsen Lau, CEO of Lifestyle International Holdings. After nearly 10 years of development, Lifestyle International officially launched the Shanghai Jiuguang Center, its first commercial complex in the Chinese mainland, Lau said. There are more than 400 brands in the center, about 30% of which debuted in Shanghai. JLL statistics show that office investments took the lion’s share, or 57.6%, of the volume of commercial real estate investments in the third quarter, up 14.2% quarter-on-quarter. Eight office spaces in China, including Beijing Financial Street, Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD) and Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, were listed among the world’s top 20 most expensive office spaces in 2021, according to JLL’s latest Global Premium Office Rent Tracker.
The investment volume of logistics properties, especially those located in the Yangtze River Delta region, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster, remained bullish in the third quarter. The volume of commercial real estate investments in the Asia-Pacific region reached USD125 billion in the first three quarters, up 30% from the same period in 2020, the China Daily reports.
