Serviced offices find takers as SMEs chase convenience

More Chinese companies are choosing to use serviced office space - furnished workplaces that also offer business administration services - rather than buying or renting their own facilities, according to one of the country's leading providers of such offices.

Paul Salnikow, chairman and CEO of The Executive Center, said over the past five years its China client base had evolved from primarily foreign companies to being divided equally between overseas and domestic customers.

That expansion has been driven, said Salnikow, predominantly by the emergence and growth of the Chinese service industry, with many more small and medium-sized firms operating in the fields of finance, IT, consultancy, trade and recruitment.