Bulgaria (represented by its capital city Sofia) ranks 51st in the world in Cushman and Wakefield's chart of the world's cities with most expensive class A office space rents. Last year Sofia was 45th .

With the average annual rent in the city running at about 228 euros/sq m or 19 euros/sq m a month, Sofia ranked between Colombia's capital Bogotá and the Philippines' Manila.

Serbia's capital is debuting at number 47 in the chart with 258 euros per m2 a year or 21.5 euros per m2/month.

Despite falling one spot, Romania's capital Bucharest also comes before Bulgaria – at number 35 with an average of 346 eur/m2 a year and 28.83 euros/m2 a month.

Turkey saw the biggest rent hike last year. In Istanbul rent of class A office space rose 94% as a result of increased demand from foreign investors.

The average annual rent there stood at 359 eur/m2, or 30 eur/m2 per month.

Besides Moscow, which traditionally is one of the top 10 countries with most expensive rents, another CEE country – Ukraine also ranked high in the list. The average rent in the capital Kiev stood at 572 eur/m2 or 47.7 eur/m2.

The country debuted at number 16 after rents gained some 20% last year.

Poland climbs five spots to number 22 with an annual rent of 508 eur/m2 (42.3 eur/n2 per month).

As a whole rents in the leading European cities grew 11% in 2007. The hike in the countries in Central and Eastern Europe came to 19%. The slowest increases among the latter were recorded in the Czech Republic and Hungary – 3%.

20072008CountryCityRent (Eur)11Great BritainLondon227732Hong KongHong Kong174523JapanTokyo153654IndiaMombay121475RussiaMoscow116046FranceParis1035177SingaporeSingapore954108UAEDubai 92169IrelandDublin823910USANew York733




4034TurkeyIstanbul3593435RomaniaBucharest3463236HungaryBudapest3432537LebanonBeirut3423838Czech RepPrague3404239SlovakiaBratislava3262840CanadaCalgary3144141New ZealandOakland3133742FinlandHelsinki312-43MexicoMexico City3043644TaiwanTaipei286-45UruguayMontevideo280-46ChileSantiago268-47SerbiaBelgrade2584248CroatiaZagreb2584449MalaysiaKuala Lampur251-50The PhilippinesManila247