From June 1 to 5, 2026,Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive Lee Ka-chiu led a business delegation to visit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to explore emerging economic and trade markets in Central Asia and promote in-depth cooperation between Hong Kong and Central Asia in various fields such as economy, trade, finance,and innovation and technology. This delegation is the largest and covers the widest range of previous visits, demonstrating Hong Kong's firm determination to proactively integrate into the "Belt and Road" and serve the country's high-level opening-up. As the initiator of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, Kazakhstan is also Hong Kong’s largest trading partner in Central Asia. The two places have close economic and trade exchanges and broad prospects for cooperation. This visit marks a new level of cooperation between the two parties.
On June 2, 2026, Jingsh Law Firm’s Kazakhstan Almaty Cooperation Office and the Hong Kong Belt and Road General Chamber of Commerce officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Astana. The signing ceremony was held under the joint witness of the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Li Jiachaoand the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin. The agreement was signed by Li Hao, equity partner of Jingsh Law Firm Headquarters, Director of the Cooperation Office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Executive Director of the Cooperation Office of Hong Kong, China. The agreement aims to deeply connect emerging markets in Central Asia, build a "golden channel" for economic, trade and legal cooperation between Hong Kong and Kazakhstan, use Hong Kong as an international platform to use the port to go overseas, connect Central Asia, and inject new momentum into China-Kazakhstan pragmatic cooperation. Reyza Marhaba, executive director of the Kazakhstan Almaty Cooperation Office of Jingsh Law Firm, also attended the meeting. This signing was included in the list of key implementation achievements of the Hong Kong SAR Government Invest Hong Kong. It is the only project focusing on legal professional services among the 43 cooperation memorandums and cooperation agreements signed that day.
▲Conference site
▲Lee Ka-chiu, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
▲Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin
(Signing Ceremony) Fourth from left: Li Hao, Equity Partner at Jingsh Law Firm Headquarters, Director of Cooperation Office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Executive Director of Cooperation Office in Hong Kong, China
Since its establishment in 2017, the Hong Kong Belt and Road General Chamber of Commerce has been committed to uniting the professional and commercial forces of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and the mainland to play a bridge role in the construction of the "Belt and Road" and provide an important platform for the industry to expand the network of countries along the route, explore business opportunities, and carry out diversified cooperation.
Since the Kazakhstan Almaty Cooperation Office of Jingsh Law Firm was officially established in Almaty in 2023, starting from Kazakhstan, it has gradually built a legal service network covering the five Central Asian countries. The office brings together a professional team with service capabilities in Chinese, Russian, English and Kazakhstan and cross-jurisdictional practical experience. They have long-term expertise in Central Asia's investment environment, legal systems and business practices. They focus on key areas such as energy and minerals, agriculture, infrastructure, cross-border investment, international trade and corporate compliance, and provide full-process, integrated and implementable legal service support for Chinese companies to enter Kazakhstan and participate in regional economic and trade cooperation. Since its establishment, the office has served hundreds of Sino-Kazakhstan investment cooperation projects, and has accumulated solid project experience and professional advantages in complex cross-border transaction structure design, investment risk prevention and control, local compliance implementation and dispute resolution.
▲Li Hao, Equity Partner at Jingsh Law Firm Headquarters, Director of Cooperation Office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Executive Director of Cooperation Office in Hong Kong, China
▲Reiza Marhaba, Executive Director of the Kazakhstan Cooperation Office of Jingsh Law Firm
This signing is of far-reaching significance:
- Use professional cross-border legal services to build a legal foundation for the two-way docking of Hong Kong's international financial hub and Central Asia's industrial hub, and fill in the shortcomings of Hong Kong's capital landing in Central Asia and Central Asia's resources landing in Hong Kong's full-chain legal support;
- Fill the gap in high-end professional services in cross-border compliance risk control and cross-border commercial dispute resolution in cross-border cooperation between Hong Kong and Central Asia, and improve the closed-loop cross-jurisdictional legal service system in the two places;
- Innovate and build a new paradigm of international cooperation in which Central Asia borrows Hong Kong to go overseas and Hong Kong radiates to Central Asia, deeply integrates the advantages of Hong Kong's world-class investment and financing platform and the service capabilities of Central Asia's real industries, and creates a model for Hong Kong and Macao's professional service industry to deploy in the Central Asian market.
Li Hao, equity partner at the headquarters of Jingsh Law Firm, director of the Almaty Cooperation Office in Kazakhstan, and executive director of the Hong Kong Cooperation Office, said that Kazakhstan is in a critical window period for economic transformation and digital development, and the demand for international legal services continues to rise. This strategic cooperation realizes the in-depth integration of Hong Kong’s international financial center platform advantages and Central Asia’s local legal service capabilities. The office will rely on Hong Kong's mature offshore finance, listed financing and international compliance systems to help Hong Kong seniors participate in high-quality fields such as Central Asia's energy, minerals and technological innovation; at the same time, it will provide full-process legal support for Kazakhstani and Central Asian companies to achieve listing, cross-border financing and global market expansion through the Hong Kong platform, truly realizing two-way reciprocity between Central Asian companies using Hong Kong to go overseas and Hong Kong businessmen landing in Central Asia.
The signing of this strategic cooperation coincides with an important window period when Hong Kong and Kazakhstan agreed to negotiate on the signing of a comprehensive double taxation agreement and start discussions on an investment promotion and protection agreement. In the future, the Kazakhstan Almaty Cooperation Office of Jingsh Law Firm and the Hong Kong Belt and Road General Chamber of Commerce will establish a regular communication mechanism in the fields of economic and trade investment, cross-border finance, legal compliance, commercial mediation, science, technology, innovation, culture and education, and build a legal cooperation channel for the linkage of resources between Hong Kong and Central Asia. The two parties will work closely together to continue to deepen pragmatic cooperation between Hong Kong and Central Asia in the fields of legal services, investment and financing, and industrial docking, provide high-quality foreign-related legal services to support the construction of the Asia-Europe section of the “Belt and Road”, and continue to contribute to the in-depth integration of mainland, Hong Kong and Macao professional forces into the Central Asian Silk Road.