A senior official of Invest Hong Kong on Sunday began an eight-day visit to South Africa and Rwanda to showcase the city’s role as the strategic gateway for African enterprises planning to expand in Asia.

InvestHK Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion Loretta Lee Shuk-ching will visit Johannesburg and Kigali to strengthen economic ties with African economies and promote the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as the premier springboard for African firms to tap into the Chinese mainland and Asia-Pacific markets, according to an InvestHK statement.

"Africa holds a strategic position in the Global South, representing a vital engine of growth in an era of global economic uncertainty,” Lee was quoted as saying in the statement.

“Interconnectivity is the key to unlocking this potential, and Hong Kong plays a strategic role in linking capital, talent, and innovation and technology between Africa, the Chinese mainland, and international markets to drive high-quality, multilateral growth.”

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InvestHK, the HKSAR government's arm for both investment and mainland enterprises aiming to go global, facilitates “two-way investment through strategic market insights, extensive global access, targeted promotion and policy facilitation," she added.

Lee will visit Johannesburg from May 10 to 13 to meet with representatives from the local chambers, financial institutions, banks, fintech interests, and business and professional services sectors.

She will then fly on May 13 to Kigali, where she will represent InvestHK at the Africa CEO Forum to drive high-level exchanges with C-suite executives from the continent's leading multinationals.

Noting the South African national rugby team's recent first-ever title at the Hong Kong Sevens, Lee said that such vibrant people-to-people connections are not merely symbolic, but serve as a meaningful foundation for driving bilateral economic ties.

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InvestHK said African enterprises establishing a presence in Hong Kong can benefit from its globally recognized common law system and Asia's most competitive tax regime, adding that it recently halved its profits tax to 8.25 percent for qualifying physical commodity traders.

By combining this fiscal incentive with the city's status as the world's pre-eminent offshore renminbi hub, Hong Kong offers African commodities exporters a high-liquidity, efficient gateway to Asian markets, InvestHK said.

In line with the National 15th Five-Year Plan, the Hong Kong SAR is also leveraging its status as a "super connector" and "super value-adder" to support national development, it added.