Cushman and Wakefield's worldwide retail report - Brought to you first by Commercial People

A global retail report from Cushman and Wakefield today, showed global trends continue to stay positive for shopping centre development. Crucial additions to supply are expected between now and 2016 within major emerging markets such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Russia.

Signaling well for the property industry are the remarkable increase in ultra-high net worth individuals worldwide and improving global economic fundamentals, plus stronger consumer confidence. Global GDP is assumed to grow at a 3.4% rate, the highest since 2011. Household spending will contribute significantly to GDP gains, lead by spending in the U.S., E.U. and China. China is still assumed to record a global best at a 4.5% rise in consumer spending during this year, which will rise further to 5.1% next year.

A representative from Global Retail COO and Retail in the Americas, have claimed retail real estate development to be often viewed as the measure whilst the worldwide economy transitions from recovery to growth. South American Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru are due to experience additions to their supply over upcoming years. Although the US has the highest ratio shopping centre space per capita in the world, it still has projects of over 100,000 square metres under development.

During the previous two years, over 1,650 new shopping centres were delivered in the countries and markets were surveyed. These properties represent 63.9 million square metres of GLA, equivalent to 7% of overall existing inventory. Brazil, China, India, Mexico and the U.S. motivated  the majority of the newly added space. The Americas region accounted for over 1,000 of the total delivered shopping centres.

The current global development pipeline stands at 38.3 million square metres, with an expected 1,134 new centres to be completed by the end of the year. Asia leads the category by GLA in the pipeline, standing at 22 million square metres for 2014. Over the upcoming three years, Asia will deliver over 53.3million square metres of GLA, almost five times the total of its closest competitor - the U.S.

Asia continues to be a significant growth market for retailers providing both mature retail markets such as Australia and Japan, plus the world's largest emerging markets. In China, the latest supply of shopping centres is highly significant with a measure of oversupply in some markets, according to Retail Services in the Asia Pacific region. India, Indonesia and Vietnam also have immense growth experiences."

Worldwide investment in shopping centres was healthy last year. This year commenced strongly with global retail transactions totaling US$37.9billion during the first quarter. This represents a 42% year-over-year gain. Acceleration within the U.S. and recent trends of India are largely motivating the growth. Latin America also recorded some positive performance with high levels of activity in Mexico.

The global head of retail suggests new stocks, asset management and differentiation could be significant for the future. However, long established properties are required to be assessed in order compete with the newly built and more adapted centres. Therefore redevelopment, refurbishment and reinvention is key for success, particularly in adopting strategies to engage shoppers whose habits are ever changing in this age of social media, with the choice to shop online at any time or in-store.