Top cities for tech occupiers

South East Asian developing cities such as Manila and Jakarta are held down by low scores on environmental measures such as air pollution and traffic volume.

Traffic and air pollution held down Manila’s ranking in terms of best urban locations for technology occupiers in Asia Pacific, according to a study by Colliers International.

Based on a Sept. 19 report entitled “Top locations in Asia—Technology sector,” Manila ranked 9th out of the 16 cities assessed by Colliers International. The rankings were based on nearly 50 criteria relevant to choice of location under three headings namely: socio-economic factors, property factors and human factors.

Colliers explained that these three factor groups are broken down into seven sub-categories namely economic output, employment considerations, workforce orientation, and availability of talent under socioeconomic factors; employer office costs and office accommodation under property factors; and employee aspirational metrics under human factors.

Under socioeconomic factors, Manila ranked 7th with a score of 29.9 percent, besting Jakarta, Tokyo and Taipei.

For the property pillar, the Philippine city stood at the 8th place, surpassing prime cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. Criteria under this pillar include employer costs, CBD rents in Asia, as well as quality of office stock, volume of new supply and availability of flexible workspace.

Human factors, which look at city safety, quality of living, air pollution and traffic volume, saw Manila’s ranking go down to the 10th place, with a score of only 10.1 percent. This, however, is still higher than Beijing, Mumbai and Delhi NCR.

“South East Asian developing cities such as Manila and Jakarta are held down by low scores on environmental measures such as air pollution and traffic volume,” it said.

According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency, traffic in Metro Manila now costs as much as P3.5 billion a day, up from P2.4 billion in 2014.

The higher economic cost of transportation in the metropolis was based on 2017 estimates under Jica’s follow-up survey on the Roadmap for Transport Infrastructure Development for Greater Capital Region.

Meanwhile, the Colliers report identified Bangalore, Singapore and Shenzhen as the top three location choices in Asia for technology occupiers.

“Bangalore’s first place reflects Asia’s top long-run growth, depth of talent pool, ample office stock, low staff costs and rents, and a low cost of living. Singapore’s second place reflects its strong reputation as a source of talent and leading position on aspirational measures; this outweighs the city’s lower ranking on property metrics,” Colliers explained in the report.

“Third-placed Shenzhen has seen its technology base widen through high R&D. It scores well on property factors, reflecting ample availability of office stock and high planned new supply,” the report stated.

Coming in fourth place is Beijing, followed by Shanghai, while Seoul, Hyderabad, Hong Kong ranked sixth, seventh, and eighth in the report, respectively.