KUALA LUMPUR: Kuala Lumpur remains the top choice for commercial investment or development, followed by Selangor, (23 per cent), Penang (17 per cent), Johor (20 per cent) and Sabah (11 per cent), said Knight Frank Malaysia.

In a statement today, the global property consultancy said, according to its Malaysia Commercial Real Estate Investment Sentiment Survey 2017, the respondents' interests in the capital city had waned marginally for the year ahead.

"More respondents are looking to diversify their investments to popular regions such as Penang, Johor and Sabah," it said.

Its managing director Sarkunan Subramaniam said the survey predicted the commercial real estate outlook based on sentiments of industry players.

"Both office and retail markets will continue to be under pressure with rental and occupancy due to oversupply.

"The logistic/industrial sub-sector is set to gather pace in 2017 with the growth of e-commerce driving the demand for logistic/industrial space," he said.

Sarkunan said despite the challenging operating environment, the respondents were interested to explore investment opportunities in various regions.

Sabah and Penang were voted as the highly-attractive regions for hotel/leisure investment, likely attributed to their strong tourism market, he said.

The survey said that there will be an increase in interest in the healthcare/institutional sub-sector among developers in 2017 and 11 per cent more appeared to be more interested as compared to 2016.

The Malaysia Commercial Real Estate Investment Sentiment Survey 2017 was conducted using an e-survey mechanism distributed throughout Knight Frank's vast database with key players in the local commercial sector.