Untitled - the ultimate blog

Office vacancy rates
Aug 13th 2009
From The Economist print edition
The global recession has led to an increase in empty office space in most big cities across the world,
according to CB Richard Ellis, a property firm. Beijing’s office glut was already the worst of any large city a
year ago. But it has since worsened and the vacancy rate is now 23%. Thanks to the severe downturn in
the Russian economy, the fraction of offices lying unoccupied has more than doubled in Moscow. About
one-eighth of office space is vacant in both Mumbai and Frankfurt. But Frankfurt’s vacancy rate has hardly
budged over the past year, whereas Mumbai’s has more than quadrupled, from 2.9% to 12.7%.
Occupancy has fallen even in crowded Tokyo, but its vacancy rate of 5.1% is still the lowest of any big
city.
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
-147-