Delhi:
New Delhi's Khan Market is the world's 21st most expensive retail high street, according to an annual survey by global real estate consultants Cushman & Wakefield.
The survey 'Main Streets Across the World 2010', states that India has improved its position from 24 in 2009 on the back of strong rental value movement in 2010.
While New York's Fifth Avenue retains its position as the most expensive shopping destination in the world, Hong Kong's Causeway, and Ginza in Tokyo are in the second and third places ahead of London, Paris and Milan in the 2010 survey, the firm said in a release in Delhi on Thursday. The study was done among 269 shopping locations across 59 countries.
Khan Market is ranked above expensive Mumbai's Linking Road in Bandra and New Delhi's Connaught Place.
"With the markets gaining momentum and retailers globally revising their expansion plans in India, we see a gradual resurgence in values. New Delhi and Mumbai will continue to witness a faster growth rate in value against others due to greater interest in these markets.
"However, cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and even Ahmedabad, have experienced a growth over the previous year," Cushman & Wakefield India Executive Director Kaustuv Roy said.
Khan Market saw a rise of over 15 per cent in rentals after a dismal performance in 2009, largely due to returning interest from retailers even as many brands have started to revise their expansion plans in the country.
However, other retail high street destinations in New Delhi/NCR did not see the same fervour and areas like Greater Kailash-I (-10 per cent) and South Extension (-12 per cent) continued to see a slide in value.
Delhi's Basant Lok recorded the steepest erosion in rentals across the country at over 38 per cent.
Despite Linking Road seeing a 33 per cent rise in rental values in 2009-10 as against the year ago period, Mumbai, overall, saw the highest fall in rental value as a result of the economic downturn.
"Going forward we expect many retail markets to gain their previous strength but landlords will be cautious about the rate at which values go northwards. They would like to keep prices at acceptable limits of growth, given the previous experience of diminished interest for locations with higher values," he added.
Rental values in locations such as CG Road in Ahmedabad and MG Road in Pune surged 18.2 and 13.6 per cent, respectively.