china briefings

"New landmark openings are accelerating a quality-driven shift in Guangzhou’s retail market, particularly in leading secondary locations where both environment and tenant profiles are improving."

"Tech occupiers continued to expand in Shenzhen in 2025, supporting office leasing demand, with Nanshan standing out as the leading submarket and net absorption expected to remain strong into 2026."

"Emerging submarkets, particularly International Financial Town and Pazhou, continued to underpin leasing activity in 2025, though elevated vacancy reflects an ongoing structural adjustment as new supply outpaced demand."

"With competition intensifying, operators are adopting more granular tenant segmentation and shaping products around lifestyle, consumption patterns and expectations of quality."

"Pudong’s year-end reversal in the rising vacancy trend has been encouraging, but weaker performance in certain parts of Puxi continues to weigh on overall net absorption."

"Leasing demand in Tianjin has shown early signs of recovery, but elevated vacancy will take time to absorb. Policy support linked to the SCO summit should help improve medium-term market confidence."

"Tianjin’s retail market is gradually stabilising, with format upgrades and new consumption scenarios helping to rebuild footfall and support tenant performance."

"In Q3/2025, no new projects were delivered to Chengdu’s Grade A office market. Rents continued to decline, while vacancy rates edged up QoQ. Landlords actively considered converting existing office space into other formats, such as hotels. Meanwhile,  mixed-use development is being incorporated into upcoming project planning."

"Structured by the “good houses” strategy, four residential land plots with a floor area ratio (FAR) below 2.0 were sold in 1H/2025, hitting a four-year high. Thus, more quality low-density houses are expected to launch in the next few years."

"Consumers will still have to keep their purses tight but are still willing to spend and invest in retail products with quality and price excellence, emotional value, and self-entertaining experience."