As a healthy majority of Asia-Pacific markets recorded prime office rental growth over the first three months of 2015, Bangkok came out on top with the largest quarter-on-quarter jump.

Bangkok led prime office rental growth in Asia-Pacific over the first quarter of 2015, according to global property consultancy Knight Frank.

Bangkok recorded a 3.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth between 1 January and 31 March. Kuala Lumpur was close behind at 3.6 per cent.

Of the 19 Asia-Pacific cities tracked, 13 benefitted from rental growth over the three-month period. Three saw no movement and three – Shanghai, Beijing and Perth – recorded rental declines of 0.5 per cent, 0.5 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, Tokyo's prime office rents grew 1.9 per cent. Knight Frank attributed this limited growth to the structure of traditional Japanese leases in a “very tight market with little vacancy”.

In Singapore, the submarket of Raffles Place and Marina Bay remained steady, up just 0.6 per cent from the previous quarter as tenants looked to relocate to more affordable office spaces in light of high renewal rates.

“With the growing trend of such tenants contemplating to relocate or consolidate their spaces, more office spaces could be released to the market,” said head of research at Knight Frank Singapore Alice Tan.

“Singapore’s leasing market could be facing an ‘imminent tipping point’ with possible rental downward trend from second half this year, as tenants have more choices with the upcoming influx of new prime office spaces in 2016.”