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The rapid growth of e-commerce will completely transform the retail market within the next few years. Shopping centres will need to adapt to changing consumer needs in order to stay in business but experts believe that many will not survive. Booming online sales, on the other hand, present a great opportunity for further growth in logistics. Members of the retail panel at CEE Property Forum, moderated by Andreas Ridder, Chairman CEE at CBRE, discussed the future of the business.

Tenants in 2017 are looking for a lot more than four walls and a couple of cubicles. Developers and the owners of older schemes will need to adapt to the changing needs of occupiers in order to stay in the race. Our panel of tenants, landlords, developers and advisors at CEE Property Forum 2017 talked about what makes an office attractive in 2017 and what it will take to secure new leases and keep existing tenants happy in the years to come.

Up to 210,000 sqm of modern office space was leased in H1 2017 by companies from the business services sector - this accounts for 60% of overall demand for office space outside Warsaw. According to forecasts by ABSL, employment in business service centres in Poland will continue to grow. By 2020, the sector will likely employ approximately 300,000 specialists, further fuelling office take-up. As a consequence, smaller cities will be even more competitive to attract investors. JLL has conducted an analysis of the activity of tenants from the business services sector outside Warsaw in H1 2017.

Solid economic growth and further expansion on investment markets are expected for 2017 and 2018 in the CEE region with interest rates unlikely to increase until 2019. But even though the short term outlook is highly positive, investors and developers need to be prepared for future challenges. Nearly 400 people from more than 25 countries gathered in Vienna for the fifth CEE Property Forum, co-organised by Property Forum and RICS, to analyse the CEE property market from a global perspective.

The significant increase in interest from international investors looking for the best formats of cooperation with local developers sends a powerful message to the market in Romania’s capital city. Importantly, the abovementioned interest applies not only to the office sector, but also to the retail and logistics ones.

Demand in the Tri-City continued apace. 73,800 sqm had been leased in the area in H1 2017. The vacancy rate currently stands at 7.8%. JLL summarised H1 2017 on the office market in the Tri-City.

The markets of Budapest, Bucharest, and Warsaw, in addition to Milan and Oslo, offer the most amenable conditions for both lenders and borrowers, according CBRE’s research.

By the end of H2 2017 space under construction by Echo Investment increased to over 1 million sqm, from 677,000 sqm at the end of 2016. According to its latest financial report, the company is moving forward with a number of residential, office and retail developments.

Tenant demand for modern logistics and manufacturing space in Poland is growing at a rapid pace. In H1 2017, warehouse supply totalled 707,000 sqm while take-up hit a record high of 1,786,000 sqm, as revealed in Cushman & Wakefield’s latest report.

In H1 2017, the Wrocław office market recorded demand totalling nearly 92,000 sqm, mostly as a consequence of the high level of activity among tenants from the business services sector. JLL summarised the first half of 2017 on Wrocław's office market.