Logistics is not a crowded trade, at least not yet. An estimated 14 million square metres of additional warehouse space is still needed over the next five years to satisfy only one segment of logistics — e-commerce sales — in the developed markets of Asia Pacific, according to M&G Real Estate, based on data from Property Market Analysis and Oxford Economics. This does not include flight-to-quality demand from traditional space users in the consumer retail, manufacturing and import-export industries. Furthermore, markets such as Japan and South Korea are expected to face relatively-higher demand compared with Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

With key trends pointing toward a forecast growth of US$120 billion in e-commerce–related sales between 2018 and 2023, consumer expectations moving to one-hour deliveries over the same period, and use of automation and robotics for logistics as the norm, the structural forces creating the tailwind to boost demand for modern lo