Beijing top city for foreign investment in office block trades

Beijing replaced Shanghai as the most popular city for foreign investment in block trading in the area of office buildings for the first time last year, said Cushman and Wakefield on Wednesday.

Data from the real estate service firm showed foreign buyers contributed 15.5 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) in transactions in block trading of Beijing's office buildings, which accounted for 30 percent of the capital city's total and almost doubled the proportion of Shanghai.

Liu Bing, deputy director and general manager of capital market in Cushman and Wakefield China, said with the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuous easing of global monetary policy, the cooperation and acquisition of domestic and foreign institutions will become increasingly common.

Last year, Beijing's volume of block trading in the area of office buildings surpassed 50 billion yuan and accounted for 20 percent of the country's total, which was 204.7 billion yuan, down 30 percent from 2019.

Office as well as research and development center transactions accounted for 54 percent of the market, of which those buying for their own use contributed more than 60 percent of the total. Tongzhou and Fengtai continued to become investors' focus of attention in non-core business areas, according to Cushman and Wakefield.

With the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recovery, Beijing's office leasing demand also continued to pick up in the fourth quarter. Data from the real estate service firm showed that quarterly net absorption of Beijing and its five major central business districts were 2.56 times and 1.25 times the sum of the first three quarters, reaching 215,900 square meters and 31,500 square meters, respectively. The annual net absorption of the capital city and its five major central business districts is as high as 300,000 square meters and 57,000 square meters, respectively.

Although the growth of new office supplies in Beijing's retail market has slowed down due to the COVID-19 impact this year, the city has seen a number of new large-scale projects in the fourth quarter, following the market's recovery. New office supplies for the retail market reached 606,000 square meters last year, up 31 percent year-on-year. The new projects are all located in non-core business districts.