TOP STORIES

Zhou Haoming, a marketing and editing position in a publishing company at Park Commercial Centre in Tin Hau, observed that an increasing number of companies had moved out of the building over the past six months, leaving the premises noticeably quieter and less populated. After the companies moved away, the number of partner businesses in the office building, with which  Zhou’s company could jointly carry out promotional activities, decreased significantly. Corporate relocation activity was active in 2025. AIA Hong Kong announced in 2024 that it would expand into AIRSIDE, an A-grade commercial building in Kai Tak, as a new operations and training base for its financial planners. Activities gradually moved into the new office in 2025. Cory Tsai, a financial planner at AIA, said the new location offers better transport connectivity and amenities, as Kai Tak is now regarded as Hong Kong’s new economic centre. AIA’s relocation to new business areas is not an isolated case. Since the second half of 2025, Hong Kong’s office market has seen a period of heightened activity driven by large-scale leasing transactions and relocations.   Among the more notable cases is UBS, which announced on February 3, 2026, that it would relocate and consolidate all of its Hong Kong offices into a single hub at the International Gateway Centre in West Kowloon.  Sam Gourlay, JLL Head of Office Leasing Advisory, also noted that more firms are expanding to emerging business centers such as West Kowloon and Tsim Sha Tsui, drawn by their strategic connectivity and access to the high-speed rail link to mainland China. While Hong Kong’s office market has found some stability supported by such high-profile leasing deals, the improvement has come mostly from corporate relocations, Gourlay said. JLL said in its press release that the office market showed a gradual recovery in the …

At 11 pm on a weeknight, Reenice Lim was still on her feet. The head of House of Roasted Meats, a homegrown roasted meat brand, was juggling walk-in customers and a stream of online delivery orders. Even with four outlets in Singapore, Lim stressed that running the business still comes with significant challenges. In 2025, Singapore’s dining scene underwent a major shake-up. Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 23, 2,431 food and beverage (F&B) outlets shuttered, while 3,357 new ones opened. Among those bowing out were homegrown brands like Fluff Stack, a six-year-old Japanese-style soufflé pancake chain that closed all five of its outlets in May, citing a challenging F&B environment in Singapore.  Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) data shows that over 60% of 2025’s shuttered F&B outlets had operated for fewer than five years. Amid the fierce market competition marked by a major reshuffle, Lim said for local operators like herself, “the biggest difficulties are the increasing rental costs and manpower costs”. This struggle is echoed by 33-year-old Xia Ziwen, a veteran Chengdu restaurateur turned Singapore entrepreneur, who noted that a local labor shortage has pushed manpower costs to 30% of total operating costs. Starting in March 2025, Ministry of Manpower (MOM)  regulations further mandate a minimum gross monthly wage of S$2,080 (HKD 12,850) for F&B stall assistants, intensifying the financial pressure on small-scale operators. To comply with the manpower quotas set by MOM, businesses must hire a specific number of locals to “unlock” foreign work permits. Xia noted that this regulatory obligation can push the total monthly cost of employing a single Malaysian retail assistant to S$5,000 (HKD 30,900).  Businesses heavily reliant on migrant workers, such as Lim’s roasted meat stalls, are especially hard hit by the mounting costs brought by higher government levies and stricter wage requirements. …