Rents to drop further; narrower decline expected China's consumer confidence has yet to fully emerge from its trough, while retailers retain cautious expansion strategies. These factors, combined with a tenants among shopping centre landlords in 2026. The polarisation of footfall and sales is expected to further deepen, placing continued downward pressure on overall rents. CBRE forecasts that average shopping centre ground-floor asking rents across eight major cities will decline by approximately 1.5% y-o-y. Based on the projected marginal improvement in discretionary consumption, shopping centre rents are expected to stabilise in 2027. The trend among retailers to focus on core cities and submarkets, alongside sustained local government support to entice retailers to set up first-stores, has areas. Rental declines in these two cities are expected to narrow to within 1.0% y- Hangzhou and Nanjing will see the completion of 420,000 sq. m. and 580,000 sq. m. of new supply in 2026, the highest supply level for both cities in the past five years. This will exert stronger downward pressure on rents. In Chengdu, the submarkets will see rents decline further.