Shoppers outside the Apple Store on Beijing’s Wangfujing

Rents in China’s most expensive shopping district rose by more than nine percent in the last year, but the increase was only enough for Beijing’s Wangfujing to keep its ranking as the world’s 13th most expensive place to open a shop.

While much has been made of the slowdown in China’s luxury consumption this year, the crackdown on purchases of luxury goods has yet to make much of an impact on the capital’s retail landlords as average rents in Beijing’s Wangfujing rose from an average of $436 per square foot per year ($391 per square metre per month) in 2013 to $481 per square foot per year ($431 per square metre per month) in 2014.

The rise in retail rents just kept pace with global averages as Wangfujing continues to rank as the world’s 13th most expensive spot for leasing shop space, according to a new report by property services company Cushman & Wakefield.

5 Asia Locations in the Global Top 20

In Cushman’s report, which examined only the most expensive location in each country, five of the top twenty shopping districts globally were in Asia, with Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay this year losing it’s top spot from 2013 to New York’s Upper Fifth Avenue.

RETAIL STREETS OF THE WORLD

Shop rental rates at the world’s biggest shopping streets. Data from Cushman & Wakefield survey 2014Thanks to concerns over Occupy Central and lower traffic from mainland visitors, Causeway Bay retail rents came down by more than nine percent from $3017 per square foot per year last year, to $2735 per square foot per year in 2014.

Ranked behind Causeway Bay in Asia were Tokyo’s Ginza at $953 per square foot per year, rnaking it 7th globally; Seoul’s Myeongdong district at $932 per square foot per year, ranking it 8th globally; then Wangfujing at 13th; and Singapore’s Orchard Road ranked 16th globally with retail rents of $362 per square foot per year.

New York and Sydney on the Rise

The biggest jump at the top of the world’s most expensive retail locations was in New York, which saw rents on Fifth Avenue jump from $2500 per square foot per year in 2013 to $3500 per square foot this year, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s data.

While France’s Champs-élysées rose more than 38 percent from 2012 to 2013, during the most recent year, Paris’ most famous shopping spot saw rental rates drop by nearly three percent to $1556 per square foot per year from $1601 per square foot per year.

Sydney also moved up a few spots with the Aussie city’s Pitt Street Mall rising in value from $850 per square foot per year in 2013to $1016 per square foot per year.

Beyond the Busiest Streets

Moving beyond the headline areas, the survey found rents rising highest in the Americas with the cost of leasing a shop up an average of 5.8 percent.

In contrast, prices in Asia Pacific increased notably more slowy, at only an average rise of 3.6 percent over 2013.

Beijing’s Wangfujing Ranks 13th for Retail Rents Globally