SINGAPORE - The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) released data on Friday morning (Jan 26) showing that the office market continued to improve in the fourth quarter of last year.

Rentals of office space rose 2.6 per cent in the fourth quarter over the preceding quarter - a slightly faster pace of increase compared with the 2.4 per cent gain in the third quarter of 2017, the URA said on Friday morning.

For the whole of 2017, office rentals inched up 0.4 per cent, contrasting with the drop of 8.2 per cent in 2016.

URA also said that prices of office space increased by 2.7 per cent in the fourth quarter, after rising 0.4 per cent in the previous quarter.

For the whole of 2017, prices of office space fell 2.4 per cent - a slower pace of decline compared with the 2.8 per cent drop in 2016.

As at the end of 2017's fourth quarter, there was a total supply of about 597,000 square metres (sq m) of gross floor area (GFA) of office space in the pipeline, slightly lower than the 607,000 sq m of GFA in the previous quarter.

The amount of occupied office space increased by 55,000 sq m (nett) in Q4 2017, compared with the rise of 10,000 sq m (nett) in the previous quarter.

The stock of office space fell 4,000 sq m (nett) in Q4 2017, compared with the rise of 91,000 sq m (nett) in the previous quarter. As a result, the island-wide office vacancy rate eased to 12.6 per cent as at the end of Q4 2017 from 13.3 per cent as at the end of the previous quarter.