Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing are expected to become the world’s most important cities for luxury retail over the next five years, driven by demand for international brands from Asia’s emerging middle class.
Hong Kong was named the Asia Pacific region’s gateway for international retailers despite commanding the highest rents in the region.
With an expanding and urbanising population and high economic growth, the region is expected to lead the way in retail, according to a report from JLL.
By 2020, Asia Pacific will account for 46 per cent of the world’s middle class, up from about a third now, and 40 per cent of the world’s economy, up from 36 per cent now.
Shanghai, Singapore, Beijing and Tokyo round out the region’s top-five cities with the highest concentration of luxury and mid-tier brands, the report said.
Most of these brands come from the United States, such as Tommy Hilfiger and Coach in the luxury segment and Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle in the mid-tier level.
Companies from Italy and the UK followed.
Home-grown fashion brands are also gaining market share in the region. They are led by Japan’s Uniqlo, which expects to open 400 stores globally in the next few years, Singapore’s Charles & Keith, Australia’s Cotton On and Oroton, Japan’s Muji and FamilyMart, and South Korea’s Samsung and The Face Shop.
In Hong Kong, where space is in short supply, shopping centre rents were almost the double of the next most expensive city, Tokyo. Annual rents in Hong Kong were US$14,634 per square metre, compared with $7,149 per square metre in Tokyo.
Sydney, Seoul and Melbourne followed, ranging between $5,700 and $7,100 per sq metre. Retail rents were the lowest in India and South East Asia, where space can cost a one-tenth that of Hong Kong.
In Dubai, according to a recent JLL study, rents in prime shopping malls were less than half compared with the top tier Asia Pacific cities. In the second quarter, at the prime shopping malls, annual rents were $2,100 per sq metre, a rise of 54 per cent over the same period last year, and at secondary locations, rents were $640 per sq metre, a rise of 36.8 per cent.
Despite the rise in rental prices, vacancy rates at Dubai’s shopping areas fell to 8 per cent in the second quarter from 13 per cent during last year.
The UAE’s retail sector is expected to grow by 32.9 per cent next year to Dh151 billion from Dh114bn in 2012, according to a Dubai report on foreign investment in June.
ssahoo@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Envi%20Lodges%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeptember%202021%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECo-founders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Noelle%20Homsy%20and%20Chris%20Nader%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hospitality%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2012%20to%2015%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStage%20of%20investment%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeries%20A%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 2.5-litre, turbocharged 5-cylinder
Transmission: seven-speed auto
Power: 400hp
Torque: 500Nm
Price: Dh300,000 (estimate)
On sale: 2022
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 194hp at 5,600rpm
Torque: 275Nm from 2,000-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Price: from Dh155,000
On sale: now
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
