SINGAPORE - More office units were occupied in the third quarter even though they were more expensive to lease in the third quarter, new figures have showed.

It cost $10.32 cents per sq ft (psf) to rent an office in the Orchard area and central business district for a month, up from $10.03 in the preceding quarter, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said on Friday.

However, more tenants moved into offices in the core business districts as vacancies fell to 7.5 per cent, down from 8.2 per cent in the second quarter.

In the rest of Singapore, landlords let out office space at $6.17 psf a month, which was an increase from $6.02 a month in the second quarter.

But vacancies fell 1.5 percentage points to 8.7 per cent , on a quarter-on-quarter basis, for the three months to Sept 30.