The world’s shopping mall construction is dominated by China, which has eight cities in the world’s top 10 busiest for shopping mall construction, says commercial real estate services firm CBRE.

Chinese cities Tianjin, Shenyang and Chengdu occupy the top three spots. Tianjin, which ranks first, has an ongoing projects with a a total retail space of 2.45 million sqm in around 16 shopping malls.

Ranking second is Shenyang which has 2.18 million sqm of retail space in 18 shopping development projects in different stages of completion.

In third spot is Chengdu with around 1.89 million sqm in 24 retail development.

While CBRE Asia executive director Sebastian Skiff finds the batch of shopping mall constructions a symptom of overbuilding, it also shows a catch-up after a long period of underdevelopment.

Skiff also said that the ongoing mall developments in China will put its main centres on a par with other Asian cities in terms of retail space per capita, however, still short of international norms.

Skiff warns mall developers that with so many projects coming on stream at the same time, there will be winners and losers. 

GB