Industrial land prices and rents for industrial facilities will rise significantly in Shanghai over the next few years on robust demand from investors and occupiers, CB Richard Ellis, a leading real estate services firm, has forecast.

Over the next four years, prices of the city's industrial land are set to jump 55 percent while the rents for an average industrial facility are likely to gain 43 percent between 2008 and 2011, predicted Andrew Hatherley, executive director for Industrial and Logistics Services, CBRE China.

Continued control over industrial land supply, coupled with a limited quota for new sites, led to a substantial jump in industrial land prices in the city in the first half of this year.

Between January and June, the average industrial land price in Shanghai gained 28.2 percent to 1,304 yuan (US$190) per square meter, CBRE said in its latest market research report.

The rent for an average facility climbed 16.9 percent to 38.8 yuan a square meter a month in the same period.

But the jump in prices is even more staggering in surrounding areas.

In the first six months of this year, industrial land prices in nearby cities jumped 67.4 percent from a year earlier while facility rents rose 25.2 percent, the CBRE report said.

Jones Lang LaSalle, a property firm, said earlier this month a supply of industrial land will be available from late this year to early 2009.

(Shanghai Daily July 16, 2008)