Myanmar: The Hottest Office Rental Market in Southeast Asia

A worker is seen at a construction site for Shangri-La Residences in Yangon, Myanmar. Myanmar has approved FDI projects worth more than $1.8 billion from the start of the fiscal year on April 1 to the end of August, compared with $1.4 billion in the whole previous fiscal year, Aung Naing Oo, a director general at the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development, said.

Workers work at the Vietnam Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) constriction site in Yangon, Myanmar. The wave of investment comes as Myanmar's quasi-civilian government implements political and economic reforms, initiated two years ago by President Thein Sein, a former general who led the country out 49 years of military rule and global isolation.

Day laborers unload sands from a ship to trucks at their construction site in Yangon, Myanmar. The European Union agreed in April to lift all sanctions on Myanmar, while the United States suspended sanctions in May last year and allowed U.S. companies to invest through a general license. Some American executives have urged Washington to go further and lift sanctions entirely.

A staff opens the boot of a Hyundai car at a showroom in Yangon, Myanmar. Most of the approved FDI came from other Asian nations, said Aung Naing Oo, a director general at the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development.

A truck passes near a container yard at a port in Yangon. "Malaysia, which brought about $500 million for manufacturing Nissan cars, is the biggest investor during this fiscal (year) in terms of size followed by Hong Kong and South Korea, who injected funds in the garment industry," Aung Naing Oo said.

Day laberers unload sands from a ship to trucks at their construction site in Yangon, Myanmar. Nissan Motor Co plans to start a complete knock down production of its cars in Myanmar with a Malaysian partner Tan Chong Motor Holdings Bhd, the Japanese automaker said on Friday, becoming the first major global carmaker to be assembling cars in the Southeast Asian country.

Myanmar migrant workers arrive at Yangon international airport after they returned from Malaysia, in Yangon, Myanmar. The rising tide of foreign investment is fuelling a property boom in the commercial capital Yangon with the increasing demand for rental space feeding the highest office rental rates of any Southeast Asian city, according to real-estate firm Colliers International, which opened a branch in Yangon in July.

Myanmar migrant workers line up to pass immigration upon their arrival at Yangon international airport after they returned from Malaysia, in Yangon, Myanmar. Real-estate firm Colliers International put the average rental rate in Yangon at nearly $80 per square metre, compared to about $25 in Bangkok and $30 in Hanoi. At about $70 per square meter, even the affluent city-state of Singapore doesn't match Yangon, it said.

A Myanmar boy in his school uniform chuckles as he sits in a sidewalk stall selling maize to feed pigeons in Yangon, Myanmar. Scipio Services, a Yangon-based firm that helps foreign companies establish themselves in Myanmar, puts prime office rental rates even higher. According to their survey, commercial spaces in the few business towers available jumped from $50 per square metre in mid-2011 to as much as $90 by May this year.

Passengers get on a commuter train at a railway station in Yangon, Myanmar. Drastic rises in property prices are being driven partly by land speculators. Miller at Scipio Services said the government could implement a "holding tax" that would encourage landowners to either build on a property or sell it to a developer.

A street vendor uses a hand-free microphone and a loudspeaker, hanged around his neck to publicize his merchandises at a railway station platform in suburbs of Yangon, Myanmar. Picon, however, was sceptical the government could enforce compliance.

"For tax on unused land, the owner could build something small and say the land is being used," he said. "Overall I find using tax often counterproductive especially when you have limited capacity within government to enforce laws."