A survey of prime residential and office land in the Asia region throws up a large number of contrasts for the first six months of this year.

The growth in price of prime residential land in the Asia-Pacific region slowed to a rate of 1.1 per cent in the six months to 30 June this year, from a 3.0 per cent clip in the previous half-year period. Price growth of prime office development land moved in the opposite direction, with price growth accelerating to 3.6 per cent from 2.6 per cent.

The data comes from Knight Frank, a property consultancy, in its Prime Asia Development Land Index.

Among the details, the index shows that Phnom Penh, the capital and largest city in Cambodia, recorded the strongest increase in both residential and office land prices in H1 2015. The city logged a rise of 14.1 per cent for prime residential and 9.7 per cent for the equivalent office category. In second place in residential was Bangkok, at 4.8 per cent. Hong Kong was second in offices, at 9.3 per cent. Singapore saw a drop of residential land prices at 3.0 per cent; in offices, its prices rose 2.9 per cent.

Knight Frank argues that additional market cooling measures introduced in Hong Kong, which targeted the mass residential market, appear to have channelled demand to the luxury sector. In China, it said local governments have reduced land supply and maintained aggressive pricing. In the first half of this year, land sales volumes in China plummeted by 54.8 per cent year-on-year.

“The dearth of new supply in China in H1 2015 has led development land investment volumes in Asia to plunge by 51.3 per cent year-on-year,” the report said. However, it noted that Chinese insurance companies such as Ping An have taken on more development risk. Their land investment swelled by 234.3 per cent year-on-year and 83.2 per cent over the previous six months to reach $3.3 billion.