Shanghai, January 31, 2007 - Thanks to Shanghai’s sound international business environment and continuous demand from MNCs’ expatriate families, the rental rate of Shanghai’s high-end residential market continues to rise in the 4th quarter. According to latest research from Cushman & Wakefield, the monthly rent of serviced apartments has already reached US$23.09 /sqm, whilst the villa rent achieved US$23.68 per/sqm - 2.62% and 2.51% higher than that of the last quarter respectively. In the meantime, Shanghai is the only one out of the 70 major Chinese cities seeing a decline in average housing price, with a slight decrease of 1.1%.