I’ve just spent two amazing weeks travelling across Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City (HMMC) – two places often mentioned in the same breath in discussions about Asia's economic trajectory but rarely understood in terms of how they work together. A walk-through Central’s corridors of private capital and then through District 9’s new logistics hubs in HCMC reveals that both cities are quietly – and profoundly – reshaping their roles within a changing world order. What they offer isn’t dichotomous, but complementary: one involves orchestrating capital and confidence, while the other involves building capability and production scale.

From a corporate real estate perspective, these pairing yields both opportunities and lessons. In an age where supply chains are becoming geographic networks – and capital flows are being strategically recast – the ability to combine functions across distinct markets is emerging as a pivotal differentiator. This is not the story of successor cities and sunset cities  It’s about how Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City together are defining the new choreography of global value. 

My five key takeaways from this extraordinary trip are:

1. Hong Kong’s role has narrowed, but deepened

It is now a highly specialised centre focused on capital orchestration, Chinese wealth flows, regulated finance and high-trust digital infrastructure – with premium Grade A assets and strategic occupiers driving recovery.

2. Ho Chi Minh City has moved beyond ‘workshop’ status

It is now a regional manufacturing and logistics hub, with rising office demand from engineering and supply-chain functions, and a capital markets upgrade that positions it on the emerging market map.

3. The office and industrial markets in both cities are diverging internally

Prime space in Hong Kong is benefiting from flight-to-quality, while decentralised stock suffers.  Industrial parks in HCMC are nearly full, while new office supply needs to align with industrial clustering for continued absorption.

4. CRE strategy must now follow role, not geography

Occupiers who treat Hong Kong and HCMC as complementary nodes – rather than either/or bets – will better navigate tariffs, regulation, talent pipelines and capital positioning.

5. The window for advantage is open but narrowing

Both markets offer tenant leverage, but only for those who can move now: Hong Kong before valuations.

Hong Kong: From ‘Global Financial Centre’ to Strategic Interface

Hong Kong is a city caught between perceptions. To some, its political evolution and pandemic impact have broken the core ingredients of its success.   To others – particularly those running regional businesses, managing mainland Chinese wealth, or structuring complex financial flows – Hong Kong remains not only relevant, but vital for a very specific set of reasons.

Capital’s conduit is becoming a trust machine

A record HK$99 billion worth of insurance policies was purchased by mainland Chinese customers in Hong Kong during the first half of 2025. That headline, reported by the Financial Times, tells a bigger story.  Wealth isn’t fleeing mainland China – it’s being realigned, wrapped in US$ of HK$ assets, and placed in structures that still rely on Hong Kong for legal, regulatory and market integrity.  That’s why private banks and asset managers are refitting their Hong Kong offices today – not for headcount growth, but for capital architecture and trusted client interface. 

At the same time, the ganglion of global finance is twitching again. After years of retrenchment, banks such as Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Standard Chartered have begun rebuilding their Hong Kong teams, driven by rising deal activity, the resurgence of cross-border listings, and a shift toward regulated offshore capital restoration. And while some IPO flows have been lost to New York or Shanghai, Hong Kong has adapted its listing framework to attract new capital sources – from loss-making biotech firms to mainland Chinese consumer-tech and AI startups.

This is the microclimate that is now beginning to stabilise Hong Kong’s office market. Knight Frank’s latest market insights show Grade A vacancy falling modestly to 14.5% in Q3 2025, with several of the city’s landmark towers recording positive absorption for the first time since 2019. The big deals are concentrated in prime core assets – not in volume, but in symbolic quality.

The recent multi-floor lease signed by Jane Street for over 220,000 sq ft in Hong Kong’s Central district – at over HK$30m per month – is both a headline and a signpost. It signals that high-trust ecosystems still command a premium in a world where economics are becoming less open, and data connectivity – not just physical occupancy – drives locational decisions. 

A market splitting, recovering and retooling

The bifurcation is clear. Premium Grade A buildings in Central, Admiralty and Quarry Bay are stabilising and, in some cases, returning to rental growth. Older, secondary and decentralised stock is still faltering. Vacancy in some of these buildings remains over 20%, and landlords exposed to highly leveraged assets are under pressure as financing costs rise. HSBC’s recent warning that 73% of its HK$32bn commercial property loan book is ‘higher risk’ or impaired.

For occupiers, this presents an unusually rare moment – the ability to secure flagship space in a global finance hub with strong incentive alignment from landlords. The strategies are not about square footage, but strategic alignment:

•       Consolidating legacy floors into higher-spec, technology-enabled suites

•       Equipping new space to host confidential client interactions, regulatory reviews, and secure data applications.

•       Structuring flexible lease profiles that allow for hybrid teams, nearshored functions, and internal global mobility.

Hong Kong’s industrial and logistics story is equally revealing. Traditional port throughput has stabilised, not rebounded. What has grown instead is the specialised market: metals warehousing associated with global commodities trading; crypto-related custody and storage spaces; resilience infrastructure for data and trading operations; and energy-efficient data centres supporting hybrid finance and AI-linked activity. These assets operate on the economic fringe, but the occupancy logic is central: secure, rule-based, tightly regulated, high-trust capacity.

Ho Chi Minh City: From Factory Floor to Enterprise Ecosystem

The second thing you notice is intentionality: HCMC is not stumbling into a post-China role, it is engineering one. The first thing you notice in HCMC is energy – not metaphorically, but literally, in the sense of a city whose power lines, mobile towers, and urban edges are straining to keep up. 

Factory logic has become industrial strategy

Vietnam’s trade surplus with the United States reached US$125 billion last year – an extraordinary figure for a country that was once peripheral to global manufacturing flows.  But that success now comes with exposed risks. Proposed US tariffs of up to 40% on certain Vietnamese exports have triggered a new wave of geopolitical anxiety.  The Financial Times warned that Vietnam could become ‘the trade war’s biggest loser’ if it fails to diversify both its output and its destination markets. Vietnam knows this – and is now acting accordingly.

What has changed is not just the volume of industrial activity, but its nature. The ready-built factories and logistics hubs being developed around Binh Duong, Long An, and Dong Nai are not generic; they are fully integrated, ESG-oriented, and increasingly capable of hosting advanced manufacturing. For example, next-generation factories are now including rooftop solar, battery-backed grids, worker dormitories, cold storage, robotics, and connectivity mapping built into their specifications. 

Knight Frank’s Vietnam Research has highlighted that industrial real estate remains the ‘shining light’ of Vietnam’s property market for 2025 and beyond.  Registered FDI in manufacturing and industrial parks in the first half of 2025 reached US$21.5bn, up over 32% year-on-year.  In HCMC alone, total industrial land inventory is over 34,000 hectares across the Southern Economic Region, with occupancy in established parks still above 85%.

These are prevailing rather than typhoon winds.  The post-China value chain is now structurally rooted in Vietnam.

The rise of the multi-asset occupier

The more interesting evolution is the emergence of industrial-plus office occupiers.  Multinationals that built factories in Vietnam in the 2010s are now placing engineering teams, design roles, procurement units, finance management and even regional leadership in HCMC office space – often in close proximity to the industrial nodes themselves. 

HCMC’s CBD is seeing a pattern of leasing activity driven not by banks or insurers, but by logistics firms, IT services, and supply-chain control towers of manufacturing-based organisations. The city’s office market absorbed over 100,000 sq m in 2024 and is forecast to absorb around 50,000 sq m in 2025 – still significant, given the surge in new supply.

Office specification is improving. Developers are designing hybrid environments – with flexibility, ESG compliance, and a clear pitch to occupiers who want to manage workforce development, not just real estate cost. The emerging talent story is critical here: bilingual management teams, engineering graduates from local universities, and returning overseas Vietnamese professionals are enabling companies to run head office functions in HCMC, rather than simply supporting factories.

Capital markets: From frontier to emerging status

The most underappreciated change is the one happening in Vietnam’s financial infrastructure.  FTSE Russell’s decision to upgrade Vietnam to ‘secondary emerging market’ status – pending confirmation in 2026 – is a breakthrough.  This unlocks future index-linked flows, widens market access, supports more transparent trading regimes, and signals a shift in how global capital views Vietnam – no longer as a production hub alone, but a market with its own financial architecture.

For corporate real estate leaders, the consequence is straightforward: longer-term capital investment in physical infrastructure is rationalised once there is confidence in financial infrastructure.  The upgrade is a credibility moment.  It reinforces that industrial and office commitments in HCMC – whether owned or leased – are now supported by policy intent and market trajectory.

Corporate Real Estate Strategy:  It’s About the System, Not the Site

In a world where fragmentation is accelerating, the smartest occupiers are not doubling down on any one location; they are designing regional portfolios with complementary roles.  Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City are textbook examples: Hong Kong for capital, risk, connectivity and regulation; HCMC for production, logistics and rising talent pools.

The best CRE strategies will be portfolio strategies, not pipeline strategies.  Instead of asking ‘Where do we go next?’, they ask ‘What role does this city play in the system?’.  The answer for these two markets looks something like this:

Hong Kong: anchor legal, financial, data and governance functions; establish interface for capital and risk; enable client and investor confidence through best-grade workplace environments in prime districts; build core+flex models.

HCMC: secure scalable industrial land and logistics stock; co-locate engineering, procurement, service and R&D functions; leveraging emerging office markets for integrated talent; match industrial infrastructure to ESG demands and supply chain audits; prepare for capital market evolution.

When knit together, these roles create durability and resilience: tariff-proof value chains, capital-secure operating models, human capital proximity, and market access on both sides of the China+1 equation.

As ever, the medium-term advantage lies with those who act before the rest of the market catches up.