Singapore - Singapore has moved into the top ten most expensive office markets for the first time as a result of a severe shortage, a survey said on Thursday. The city-state jumped 10 places to the seventh spot in the survey by real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield after prime rents shot up an average 78 per cent.
London topped the 2008 rankings published in The Straits Times, followed by Hong Kong, Tokyo, Mumbai, Moscow and Paris.
Office rents rose 40 per cent on average in the top 10 office locations, said the survey of 58 countries.
Dubai was ranked eighth, followed by Dublin and New York.
Office occupancy costs in London hit an annual average of 311.58 US dollars per square foot. The corresponding cost for Hong Kong was 238.58 dollars, 210.12 dollars for Tokyo and 166.04 dollars for Mumbai.
Moscow reached 158.72 dollars, Paris 141.57 dollars and Singapore, 130.48 dollars.
Ho Chi Minh City, a fast-rising Asian centre, was in the 17th spot, with occupancy costs at 75.81 dollars per square foot a year, ahead of Sydney, Seoul and Shanghai.
"Last year saw the fastest level of growth in office occupancy costs in many of the world's top locations since the turn of the property cycle in 2001, with the strongest demand coming from the financial sector," Elaine Rossall, the firm's head of business space research, was quoted as saying.
"We are unlikely to know the full effects of the current credit squeeze on the world's main office locations until further into 2008," she said.
