While rushing to work one day, a providential poster caught Zara Shirin Pardiwalla's eye.

"It was an advertisement for Chinese language classes at the University of Seychelles," said the 27-year-old associate at Pardiwalla Twomey Lablache, a legal firm on Mahe, the largest island in the Seychelles. "I decided to enroll. We do a lot of work with Chinese clients. So it makes sense to learn Chinese."

And as luck would have it, within weeks of beginning to learn Chinese, Pardiwalla was in Beijing, deputed by her office to learn more about the Chinese legal structure. Her other task during the month-long stay was to network, telling people about the archipelago's advantages as a business gateway to Africa.

As Seychelles Investment Board Chief Executive Rupert Simeon points out, the Seychelles is China's closest African port on the Maritime Silk Road, both the ancient trade route and the new one proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Also, as a member of the African trade groupings - the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Seychelles enjoys regional knowledge and advantages for doing business with other African countries.

Besides, China is an old friend. The two governments established diplomatic ties in 1976, have a bilateral double taxation avoidance pact, and the Seychelles's capital Victoria is the official twin of Qingdao, east China's key port city.

"There is a lot of foreign direct investment from China," Pardiwalla said. "Once, tourists to the Seychelles were mainly from Europe but in the last two to three years, there has been a significant increase in Chinese tourists. Now there is talk of Air Seychelles planning direct air flights to China."

Rivals in offing

The Seychelles is not the only offshore banking and investment hub trying to woo Chinese investment in Africa. With China becoming Africa's largest trade partner and Africa's share in the world economy growing, more investment-routing centers are offering to be the bridge for China to reach the African mainland. One of them is Mauritius.   

"Over 75 percent of cross-border trade and investment goes through a third country," said Mervin N. Chedumbarum, Charge d'Affaires at the Mauritius Embassy in Beijing. "Mauritius is well-featured to offer itself as a gateway to Africa. It has air links to China, an open banking system and a mix of civil and common law. We understand the African legal system well, both in French-speaking and English-speaking Africa."

Mauritius established diplomatic links with China in 1972 and in 2006, the Chinese Government announced the Sino-Mauritian Jin Fei Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone would be established on the island as part of the 50 economic and trade cooperation zones planned overseas.

"Opportunities for investment exist across all sectors of our economy but opportunities also exist for using Mauritius as a platform for investing in Africa," said Reena Ramdin, a Mauritian barrister who was in Beijing to promote investments in Africa through her country. "In 2003, investment from China to Africa was $500 million. By the end of 2012, that figure skyrocketed to almost $15 billion, and China further pledged some $20 billion for infrastructure development in 2013. Not only [has] the quantity of Chinese foreign direct investment into Africa increased, but also the quality."

In the past, Chinese investment in Africa targeted natural resources. But now, Ramdin added, the investments are increasingly going to productive sectors such as banking, telecom, retailing, agriculture and manufacturing that contribute substantially to Africa's growth.

"We are ranked among the best countries globally, and first in Africa, in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking," Ramdin pointed out. "In terms of good governance and economic freedom, we have always been classified as the best country in Africa." 

Mauritius' financial center is promoted as an important risk-mitigating and cost-efficient partner for cross-border investment in Africa. Ramdin ticked off its advantages, "At the helm of our financial center, we have an efficient network of risk-mitigating and fiscal-efficiency treaties: more than 20 bilateral investment treaties with mainland African countries; preferential market access to an immediate market with a consumer base in excess of 600 million people through our memberships to COMESA and SADC; and 20 double taxation avoidance treaties."

The Dubai way

The growing China-Africa trade is attracting non-African nations too. With China becoming Dubai's largest trade partner last year, the first Dubai Week in China trade show was organized in Beijing in May, where Dubai-based companies and government officials explained the advantages of doing business in the emirate or through it.

Chirag Shah, Chief Strategy Officer at the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), pointed out Dubai's advantages as a bridge to Africa. The first factor is connectivity. "(National carrier) Emirates Airlines alone connects with more than 27 cities in Africa on a daily basis," he said. "Besides physical connectivity, there is cultural connectivity as well."

Ten percent of Dubai's estimated 9.44-million population are Chinese. More than 4,000 Chinese businesses already operate in Dubai. "Like any other international multinational corporations, these Chinese forums use Dubai as their regional headquarters," Shah said. "We have the four state-owned banks (Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) operating in the DIFC."

The bridging is helped by the fact that a lot of African businesses are already represented in Dubai. "Most international multinational financial institutions use the DIFC as their Africa gateway," Shah said. "The DIFC is seen as a safe investment corridor to invest into the very difficult market that is Africa as it comprises an independent regulator, an independent judicial system with a common-law framework and a global financial exchange. By providing a strong legal and regulatory platform, we are making it conducive for investments to go into Africa. As a result, you also have a lot of African multinational institutions setting up in the DIFC - the likes of Standard Bank, a leading bank from Morocco, and financial institutions from Egypt."

Another selling point is the importance Dubai gives to the Chinese yuan. "It is already the fifth-most used currency to settle trade," Shah said. "The trade between the Gulf Cooperation Council (the six-member regional common market in the Middle East comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and Asia in the last decade increased by 40 percent. A predominant portion of that is trade with China. Clearly, a lot of Middle East exports are going into China and a lot of Chinese exports coming into the region. If there is so much cross-border trade, it is but natural that the currency this trade is denominated in eventually changes its color from the green dollar to the red yuan."

Shah said by bringing the top Chinese state-owned banks to the DIFC, that trade denomination change has been facilitated: "The DIFC today offers firms the opportunity to do business in any currency other than the local dirham. What we have seen is that besides the four Chinese banks facilitating yuan-clearing business, some of the other Asian multinationals strong in Asia like the HSBC and Standard Chartered are also using the DIFC infrastructure to facilitate trade in yuan."

Finally, Dubai sees opportunity in the newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in which the United Arab Emirates is already a shareholder. "The DIFC is a platform for multilateral financial institutions to work from, using our legal regulatory framework," Shah said. "We host the International Financial Corp.'s regional office, along with a variety of export-import banks from countries like Japan, South Korea and India. We would welcome the AIIB to also use the DIFC as their hub for the region."