Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news

Shanghai's grade A office market is gaining momentum despite the overall sluggishness in the local real estate market, eastday.com reported.
With 113,000 square meters of new grade A office space coming on-stream in the third quarter of this year, there is a total of 3.25 million square meters of such space in the city. However, a growing expansion of multinational companies has driven up the demand for such offices, especially on Nanjing Road West, Huaihai Road and Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone.
Only 5.1 percent of local office space is unoccupied at present.
The tight market has driven up local grade A rents in the third quarter of the year to US$0.92 per square meter per day on average, up 7 percent from the second quarter of the year. Jing'an, Huangpu District and Lujiazui had the highest rentals citywide, with those on Nanjing Road West topping the list with an average of US$1.08 per square meter per day.
Growing demand is expected to spark further rental increases of 4-5 percent by the end of this year, said an industry analyst.
Sales prices of grade A office space are also increasing, rising by 9 percent to US$3,688 per square meter on average in the third quarter of this year.