Logistics and data centres drive up regional industrial market — JLL
05 Nov 2020
According to JLL, logistics and data centre markets have accelerated in the Asia-Pacific region and primarily drove up industrial market transactions by 76% year-on-year (y-o-y) in the third quarter of 2020 (3Q20). In contrast, office transactions went down 35%, while retail and hotel transactions fell 51% and 87% y-o-y respectively during the quarter.
JLL Property Services (M) Sdn Bhd country head YY Lau said that Malaysia is also seeing healthy interest in the logistics and data centre market.
“JLL Research Malaysia’s discussions with government-linked investment bodies, such as MIDA (the Malaysian Investment Development Authority) and InvestPenang, indicated prevailing international interest in Malaysia, especially the growing sectors, such as F&B (food and beverages), pharmaceuticals, and electrical and electronics (E&E),” Lau said in a press release.
Lau added that the real estate market had been significantly affected this year, with a 25%-35% drop in transactions across all sectors, and she expects the market to continue to see challenges in 4Q20.
“However, more efforts can be done to stimulate the real estate market, including in the upcoming Budget 2021. This can be in the forms of setting up a task force or think tanks to tackle specific industry challenges, such as high vacancy rates and the supply-and-demand mismatch, assistance for the employment sector, as well as relevant tax relief,” Lau said.
Regionally, real estate investment showed signs of a recovery in 3Q20 with US$35 billion (about RM145.3 billion) in direct transactions committed between July and September 2020, JLL said.
“Volume rebounded 35% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q), and while overall 3Q numbers were down 19% year-on-year, transactional activity accelerated across several major markets as investors deployed capital with more confidence than in any other period of 2020,” according to the statement.
The real estate and investment management firm said the q-o-q rise was led by stronger activity in China, South Korea and Japan due to some resumption of economic activity in their respective markets. Concurrently, Tokyo and Seoul have emerged as the top two cities globally for investment year-to-date (YTD), according to JLL Research.
“While uncertainty will remain for the foreseeable future, we believe that low transactional activity has bottomed out, and our optimism about the fourth quarter continues to grow,” said JLL chief executive officer (CEO) of capital markets for Asia-Pacific Stuart Crow.
“We are confident that the fourth quarter will present a broader range of opportunities across the region, particularly in classes like multifamily and rebounding markets like Singapore,” JLL head of capital markets research for Asia-Pacific Regina Lim added.
Source: The Edge Markets Posted on : 05 November 2020
