SHANGHAI: The unexpectedly high occupancy rate at Shanghai Tower, China’s tallest skyscraper, is a snapshot of foreign companies’ unchanged confidence in the country amid its continued efforts in further opening up, say officials and industry experts.
About 80% of the office space at the 632-metre-tall building has been rented out so far, while the occupancy rate of commercial space is as high as 98%, said Yan Ming, deputy general manager of Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co.
While the world economy has faced many headwinds since the Covid-19 pandemic started in early 2020, the rental performance at Shanghai Tower has bucked the trend.
Located in Lujiazui, the financial hub in eastern Shanghai, the landmark building has seen nearly 60,000 sq m of its office space rented by 78 tenants over the past two-and-a-half years, said Yan.
Foreign companies now account for 41% of the leased space, while the rate was only 9% at the beginning of 2019. About 30% of the building’s tenants are Fortune 500 companies, Yan added.
The presence of international industry leaders, such as JP Morgan and Allianz, has demonstrated foreign companies’ strong confidence in the Chinese market, which is inseparable from China’s continued efforts to advance higher-level opening-up, he said.
At the tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference in mid-December, attracting and utilising foreign capital through greater efforts was listed as one of the priorities on the country’s economic agenda.
Financial companies account for a significant proportion of Shanghai Tower’s tenants, a large number of which are planning to increase their rented space mainly prompted by the nation’s efforts toward greater opening-up, said Yan.
BNP Paribas, which rented 8,700-sq m of office space in the building at the end of last year, is already preparing to rent more space in this landmark building, according to the French bank’s China CEO C.G. Lai. — China Daily/ANN
