Rental prices for prime Phnom Penh office space saw an increase of 3.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to the Knight Frank Asia Pacific Prime Office Rental Index.

Knight Frank country manager Ross Wheble said that, excluding land, existing property prices have not recorded significant increases during the past two years; it is only the newly launched projects that are able to achieve higher selling prices because of their superior design, quality and amenities.

“For offices, we focus on the area around Canadia Tower, Phnom Penh’s developing CBD,” he added.

The report said that monthly prime office rent net prices in the capital was priced at $22 per square meter and $28.9 per square meter (after services, taxes and charges) in the fourth quarter.

Property prices in Cambodia are still relatively low compared with more developed countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, Wheble said.

The report studied about 19 cities in the Asia Pacific such as Phnom Penh, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi, Jakarta, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei and Bangkok.

“Among the cities in our index, Jakarta registered the strongest quarterly rental growth of 6.2 per cent, as vacancy dropped to the lowest rate of 4.2 per cent in our records,” the report said. “It is followed by Phnom Penh, where rents increased by 3.2 per cent, on the back of steady demand from foreign companies seeking to capitalise on Cambodia’s strong economic growth.”

“We anticipate that the office market will remain relatively healthy over the short and medium term due to the stable supply of new office space. Canadia Tower [was] completed in 2009, Phnom Penh Tower in 2011, Vattanak Capital Tower in 2014 and Hongkong Land’s Exchange Square is not due for completion until 2016, thus demand has been able to meet new supply due to the limited amount of prime office development,” he said.