Several Indian cities dominated the ‘short term momentum ranking’ in consultancy company JLL’s recently released annual global report ‘City Momentum Index’ (CMI) 2018. The report ranked Hyderabad (1st), Bengaluru (2nd), Pune (4th), Kolkata (5th) and Delhi (8th) in the top 10 cities out of the 30 top global short-term growth cities. Chennai (14th) and Mumbai (20th) completed India’s stellar show on the annual rankings.

The rankings report identifies urban economies and real estate markets, which are currently undergoing the most rapid growth and ranks them considering their performance based on various parameters. India maintained it’s pre-eminence in the short-term momentum rankings as these cities registered among the highest rates of demographic and economic growth globally.

City Momentum Index, now in its fifth year, tracks a broad range of factors to identify those cities which possess attributes for success over the short and long term. The index covers 131 major established and emerging business hubs across the globe.

Ramesh Nair, CEO and Country Head, JLL India, in a statement said, “The need to take into account a city’s future-proofing capabilities is increasingly recognised by real estate investors, developers and corporations. For investors, it is imperative to comprehend which cities will be able to gain from transformations for long-term value preservation and growth.”

Hyderabad and Bengaluru have been leading the country's prowess in the global IT/ ITeS and BPM domain. Bengaluru remains the largest Grade A office market in terms of leasing activities. Apart from being a major outsourcing location for multinational corporations, Bengaluru is also home to research and development facilities for a growing number of global companies.

However, in recent quarters, Hyderabad has picked the pace on account of favourable government policies that have had a positive impact on the office market in the city. Global brands such as Deloitte, Qualcomm and Microsoft, to name a few, have established themselves in the market.

Another trend seen in the report was the relatively lower positions of the tier-1 markets of Delhi and Mumbai, which were at position 8 and 20 respectively. San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, London and Boston are amongst the front-runners on the annual survey as top global markets. Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, Seoul and Singapore represented the Asia-Pacific region on the global top 30 survey. Interestingly, Singapore and Seattle are the only two markets amongst those surveyed to show growth on both short-term momentum and robust future-proofing potential.

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