In 2023, the industrial real estate market in Russia’s regions was characterized by robust demand across the entire country.

This trend was driven by the e-commerce sector, which, in response to a relative lull in business activity during the previous year 2022, began to actively enter into BTS deals, expanding its warehousing capacity in many regions. By the end of the year, the market set a new record in terms of demand that reached 2,289,000 sq m.

After the intensive warehouse absorption phase, the vacancy rate decreased by 1.2 p.p. to 1.7%. This, in turn, pushed rental rates up to the level of 6,000 rubles per sq m per year.

Nevertheless, the slow pace of speculative project commissioning and the fact that key market developers are overtaxed remain the limiting factors hampering full satisfaction of all needs of the market players.

In this regard, a high level of activity is expected to persist in 2024, given that large product chains and marketplaces are eager to sign new BTS transactions, because they badly need new quality warehousing capacity that would fully meet their requirements and demands.