JLL: industry's transparency on the rise.

Commercial real estate markets around the world have become increasingly transparent over the past two years, according to Jones Lang LaSalle's 2006 Real Estate Transparency Index, a ranking of real estate market transparency in 56 countries and territories.

"Since the first publication of the Jones Lang LaSalle Real Estate Transparency index in 1999, we have charted gradual improvement in a number of transparency measures, but progress has been especially rapid in the two years since we last produced the index," said Jacques Gordon, LaSalle Investment Management's Global Investment Strategist.

"Overall, two-thirds of the countries ranked in our 2004 survey exhibited some or significant improvement. Some 14 countries moved up a full tier in our five-tier transparency ranking system and none slipped back. Additionally, many more countries earned higher transparency scores while remaining in the same tier."

According to Gordon, improvements can be observed in several different dimensions of transparency including the introduction of new investment performance benchmarks, more financial disclosure by listed real estate companies and heightened external governance of these listed companies.

"That said, there has been slow progress in the legal and regulatory categories--two areas of great interest to investors and occupiers," he added.

Australia, the United States and New Zealand take the top spots as most transparent companies, followed closely by Canada and the United Kingdom. With exemplary underlying legal and regulatory factors, these countries serve as role models in their respective regions.

In this year's survey, 23 countries rank as Highly Transparent or Transparent, up from 21 countries earning the same designation two years ago. In 2006, 10 countries ranked as highly transparent, compared with six in 2004. Highly transparent countries for the first time in 2006 are Hong Kong, Sweden, France and Singapore, each having jumped to Tier 1 from Tier 2 since the 2004 survey. France and Sweden were buoyed by long-time series investment performance indices, readily available market fundamentals data, strong accounting standards and disclosure regimes, consistently applied regulations, strong legal frameworks and high professional standards. Hong Kong and Singapore were helped by their ability to meet global improvements in accounting standards and governance and more publicly reported property information.

Mexico and the United Arab Emirates also exhibited significant improvement, although they remained in the same tier as they were two years ago.

The Index ranks Vietnam, Venezuela and Egypt as the least transparent real estate markets surveyed.

The report highlights that transparency in the US is an important contributor to the record inflows of cross-border capital to the country over the last two years.

Brazil and Argentina made the most improvement in 2006, each jumping from Tier 4 to Tier 3. Brazil benefited from improvement in the availability of market fundamental data, while Argentina was helped by improved transparency in the governance of publicly listed real estate vehicles.

In Asia Pacific, there has been marked improvement, with more than half of the countries studied in the region moving up the real estate transparency tiers.

Japan and India exhibited the greatest transparency improvement, each moving up a transparency tier.

The Middle Eastern region saw transparency improvements across all markets, although Israel remains the only semi-transparent market. T

The strongest improvers are the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where governments have become increasingly business and investment friendly.