Office space in Singapore's central business district is the eighth most expensive in the world and nearly as costly as midtown Manhattan.

It cost an average of US$103 per sq ft (psf) per year to rent office space in the Raffles Place and Marina Bay area, property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle said in a report on Thursday.

This was just a whisker short of the US$104 psf per year on average that it would take to rent office space along Fifth Avenue in central New York City, one of the world's most expensive shopping streets.

The top spot went to the St James district in London's West End which clocked in at US$194 psf per year on average. The area is home to numerous hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and niche wealth managers.

Demand from the financial sector and lack of space boosted office prices in the most expensive global cities, Jones Lang LaSalle said.

It noted that the list does not include several "emerging" and "frontier" cities, where severe supply issues create exceptionally high rents. An extreme example of that would be Luanda in Angola, where asking rents are as high as US$200 psf, it said.

The rent figures above were based on quoted rents for premium office space in the top sub-markets in the various cities.