Commonalities

The analysts have found that the top 50 office buildings have at least four things in common:

First, high yields of taxes per square meters, high rents, and low resource use.

they cover an area of about 500,000 sq m, which means 63,100 yuan in taxes per sq m, last year, and 95.4 times the district average; the China Merchants Bank Tower paid about 630,000 yuan per sq m in taxes, or 957 times the district average.

35 of the top 50 are above 99 percent occupancy year round, with monthly rents running at 150 yuan per sq m on average.

they contribute to the thriving of the surrounding area and stimulate the commerce and consumer spending there.

they used 469 million kilowatt-hours of electricity last year, or just 7.5 percent of the district's total; water use stood at less than 9 million tons, or a mere 2.9 percent of the district's total.

Second, the modern service industry plays a significant role.

Of the 1,394 major tax payers in the top 50 office buildings, 840, or 60 percent, are in modern services, and paid 24.6 billion yuan in taxes, or 80 percent of all taxes paid by the buildings' occupants.

About 72 percent of the modern service industry taxes came from finance, but the number of financial companies accounted for just 23.3 percent of the total corporate taxpayers. Analysts have also found that securities businesses accounted for 40 percent of the finance business' taxes.

Third, the corporate headquarters showed strong performance.

About 62 percent of the taxes from the top 50 office buildings last year came from 105 corporate headquarters, amounting to around 19.4 billion yuan.

The China Merchants Bank paid 4.1 billion yuan in taxes, accounting for 63 percent of the tower's total taxes. The Galaxy Development Center, another member of the top 50, which is occupied entirely by the Ping'an Group, a leading financier, taxes amounted to more than 1 billion yuan.

Fourth, all industries in the same office building develop, no matter what their size.

Funds, technology, information, knowledge, and talent in one particular industry are attracted by major companies.

The China Merchants Bank Tower, for example, has an assortment of financiers in the securities business and insurance companies who have come to take advantage of the convenient services of the building's main resident, the China Merchants Bank.

Meanwhile, at the Jiangsu Tower, which has two leading securities companies - China Merchants and Zhongshan - there is a group of venture capital companies, investment companies, accounting firms, and law firms. The building's taxes went over 1 billion yuan last year, up 70 percent from 2008.

Increased efforts

The Futian district government has said it will do its best to promote an "office building economy" under the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015), for a more robust, efficient economy.

To better help modern services and corporate headquarters, its plans call for an additional 5 million sq m of commercial space in the 2010-to-2015 period, which would bring the total to 270 million sq m.

Companies in business buildings are expected to contribute 80 percent of the district's tax revenue in five years, a considerable increase over the current 60.5 percent

Projected added-value figures for modern industry in the district are an annual rate of 10.39 percent, to 193 billion yuan, by 2015, accounting for at least 70 percent of the district's GDP. That would be up from 64.25 percent in 2010.

The district government is also looking for four to five new investment projects, annually, from the world top 500 companies. It expects the number of corporate headquarters in the district to increase by 30, year-on-year from the 238 of 2010.

(China Daily 07/21/2011 page14)