Starbucks, office rents and CEOs form alternative outlook on China

Night view of the Huangpu River and the Lujiazui financial district with the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (tallest left), Shanghai Tower (tallest right), the Shanghai World Financial Center (tallest second right), and other skyscrapers and high-rise buildings in Pudong, Shanghai, April 28, 2015. [Photo/IC]

It's not just about waking up and smelling the coffee, another "index" to look into is the trend in office rental, which, to some extent, could be seen as a yardstick of China's economy.

The monthly rent in the China World Trade Center fell sharply to 200 yuan per square meter during the financial crisis in 2009, but bounced back to 400 yuan in the following year, according to CBRE, a real estate service firm that releases quarterly reports on office rental.

While the health of a country's real estate industry is closely correlated with the economic cycle, the rent of office space is also a highly cyclical economic barometer.

Since 2010, office rents have risen steadily across China. Net "absorption," a measure of how fast available supply is sold, increased in 2015 by 70 percent in first-tier cities -- Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen -- CBRE said.