Asia & The Gulf Commercial Design Trends Asia Commercial Design Vol. 30/9 | Page 46

rebound has seen returns outpace almost all other
Asian economies in the ensuing years. Like Korea
and Taiwan, Hong Kong’s close ties to mainland
China helped drive stronger domestic growth,
which again supported office returns.
Unlike Hong Kong, returns in the remaining
Asian markets bottomed out in 2009, or 2010. The
return profile of the Australian, New Zealand and
Singapore markets followed a similar trend during
the crisis, while Japan suffered the largest falls
of any Asian market, and also posted the weakest recovery. These markets were generally more
exposed to western capital markets and thus were
more vulnerable to the downturn. In Japan’s case,
an aging population has been a long-standing
problem that drags its economic growth.
Figure 2 examines the relationship between
property returns and the macroeconomy and ho