The reorganization of commercial, industrial and corporate activities was modified as a result of the pandemic. Some sectors slowed down their growth, such as the commercial, hotel and corporate sectors, while the industrial sector took the path of growth, after the opportunities it managed to capitalize on from the supply chain crisis and the growth trends in consumption through trade electronics and logistics.

Now the adaptation of the companies and their collaborators creates a new balance on some of these markets that maintain a correlation between them. Such is the case of the industrial sector and the office sector.

It is interesting to note that the growth of gross industrial demand at the national level in 2Q 2022 compared to 2Q 2021 was 5.6%, while the corporate sector surprised with a year-on-year growth of 6.4%. However, if the vacancies included in the net demand are included in the analysis, they make the recovery of the office sector more complex when compared to the industrial sector.

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But a phenomenon that has been observed is that the dynamism generated in the country's main industrial markets has a direct influence on the recovery of gross demand for offices, since the arrival of new companies and the expansion of others not only impact requirements for operating spaces in industrial warehouses, but also requests for new office spaces and areas for the operation of administrative, commercial and managerial activities.

Mexico City, for example, closes 2Q 2022 with an industrial demand of 287 thousand square meters of industrial buildings and 137 thousand square meters of offices, which implies an annual growth of 7.5% of the industrial segment, while offices advanced with a higher growth rate of 1.5 times more.

Now, what really determines the contraction of the corporate sector are the vacancies that, although they have been closing the gap, maintain positive levels when only a year ago they exceeded gross demand.

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Guadalajara is also a clear example where the industrial sector grew at a lower rate than its office sector did, closing 2Q 2022 with a gross demand of 90.3 thousand square meters of industrial buildings and 16.3 thousand square meters of offices.

In Monterrey, we observed a similar behavior where at the end of the second quarter of the year the gross industrial demand that exceeded 429 thousand square meters, the highest nationwide, grew by 6.7% when compared to the same period in 2021. However, the regional corporate sector closes with a demand for offices in 2Q 2022 of 26.5 thousand square meters, which almost doubles that generated in 2Q 2021.

But both the cases of Guadalajara and Monterrey, although they indicate significant growth in gross office demand, are significantly affected by vacancies that, although slowed down, continue to be determining elements that barely open the way towards a sustainable recovery over time.

In the remainder of 2022 and due to the observed behavior of caution in developers not to start new corporate constructions, it is likely that part of the oversupply of offices will continue to be absorbed given the scenario of increased industrial demand that is being monitored in various Mexican markets.