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Inaugural Smart Lighting Expo ignites future of lighting innovation

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Smart Lighting Expo

Over 1,300 exhibitors embrace rising opportunities in twin lighting fairs
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HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 15 March 2024 -Lighting today has transcended its traditional role of mere illumination, emerging as a catalyst for enhancing well-being and creating a better environment for quality living. To embrace this exciting evolution and capitalise on the rising opportunities, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) will organise the first-ever Smart Lighting Expo, one of the partner events of the Business of Innovation & Technology Week (BITWeek), which will take place alongside the 15th HKTDC Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Spring Edition) (Spring Lighting Fair) under the theme of “Bright Lighting * Smart Living” at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from 6-9 April 2024. Featuring more than 1,300 exhibitors from seven countries and regions, the twin lighting fairs will serve as ideal platforms for buyers to explore the latest technologies and discover a wide range of innovative lighting products for meeting the ever-changing needs in the market.

Inaugural Smart Lighting Expo ignites future of lighting innovation

According to Statista, the global smart lighting market is projected to surge to US$25.3 billion this year, a significant increase from US$8.1 billion in 2020. In line with this growth trajectory, an HKTDC survey of exhibitors and buyers at Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition) and Hong Kong International Outdoor and Tech Light Expo 2023, found that 41% of respondents expect sales to increase in the lighting market this year, with 30% identifying smart lighting and solutions as the greatest driver for growth.

To empower businesses in fully capitalising on the growing opportunities across the entire smart lighting supply chain, the Smart Lighting Expo showcases a comprehensive array of products and solutions, ranging from connected lighting technologies such as chips, sensors, LED drivers, and IoT lighting platform, to smart lighting products and solutions like smart control systems and dimmers, smart luminaires, lighting applications and systems.

Industry players unveil cutting-edge smart lighting solutions

In collaboration with Shanghai Pudong Intelligent Lighting Association, the Smart Ecosystem and IoT Supply Chain Area will feature various key players in the smart lighting industry, including Midea, Sunricher, Merrytek, and many more. Other featured brands include Helvar, Valta, SkyLighting and Up-Shine Lighting, etc. The Smart Lighting Expo welcomes the group pavilions from important lighting industry base in the Greater Bay Area, including Zhongshan, Foshan and Jiangmen. Highlighted products include:

Hong Kong exhibitor Mindstec Asia Limited (Booth no.: 1A-E02) will unveil the Helvar 950 DALI-2 multi-master application controller, Helvar’s flagship product that unlocks vast scalability for projects with four DALI-2 Multi-master networks. The solution also incorporates artificial intelligence-based technology which can self-learn continuously and adapt to the evolving needs of modern buildings. It is also compatible with 3rd party BMS building management systems and can be easily expanded and applied to large and complex projects. Helvar’s projects locate all over the world, like National Gallery UK, Istanbul Airport Turkey, Marina Bay Sands Singapore, Abu Dhabi’s World Trade Centre – Trust Tower, etc.

Another Hong Kong, exhibitor Liricco Technologies Limited (Booth no.: 1A-E08) is known for its partnerships with many notable clients including the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, Airport Authority Hong Kong. It aims to cater to a wide range of businesses with its Wireless T8 LED tube. This innovative product can save up to 90% of energy and features built-in motion and lux sensors, making it ideal for carparks, staircases, warehouses and factories. It is compatible with Casambi, DALI 2 and Valta operating systems, providing seamless integration for efficient lighting management.

Hangzhou Sky-Lighting Co. Ltd. (Booth no.: 1B-A02) will showcase smart ceiling lights and bulbs equipped with remote control, colour change and timer functions. The remarkable aspect of these products is their universality, as they are compatible with a wide range of popular smart home platforms including Matter, Apple Homekit, Google, Alexa, Tuya, Zigbee and HUE Philips. This versatility allows users to effortlessly integrate the smart lighting solutions into their existing smart home ecosystems.

Yunfan Ruida Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd (Booth no.: 1A-C18) will present its Mmwave radar solution that is applied to smart homes, elderly and nursing homes. Through multi-person trajectory tracking and people counting solution, including trajectory tracking, regional perception and gesture recognition detection, it facilitates the purposes like lighting trajectory interlocking, senseless home interlocking and air gesture switch. It also provides energy management, intelligent lighting and home security via its human presence detecting solution.

Ningbo Xiaojiang IoT Technology Co., Ltd (Booth no.: 1A-C10) is set to exhibit a smart lighting control system and an intelligent lighting solution. The system supports a wide range of IoT modules, including WiFi, BLE, Dual Mode, Matter. With its universal interfaces, it offers seamless switching across multiple platforms, while the intelligent lighting solution caters to diverse scene needs by providing various modes, such as intelligent dimming, gradient light source, reading/writing mode, reading mode, etc.

Running concurrently with the Smart Lighting Expo, the Spring Lighting Fair will continue to serve as a one-stop business platform for diverse lighting products. The Fair welcomes group pavilion from Mainland China’s Xiamen and Jiangsu. The Hall of Aurora will gather renowned brands around the globe to showcase high-quality lighting fixtures, while other product zones will include Commercial Lighting, Decorative Lighting, Residential Lighting, Technical Lighting and Lighting accessories.

Market leaders share insights on lighting trends

In addition to showcasing products, the twin lighting fairs will feature informative forums where industry players will share their insights on the latest trends and developments in the lighting industry. These forums will provide a valuable platform for knowledge exchange and networking among industry professionals.

Asian Lighting Forum, co-organised with Hong Kong Electronics & Technologies Association (HKETA) and Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC), will take place on 6 April. Renowned speakers from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Lutron Electronics and LANZ will share their insights on the impact and applications of human-centric lighting while award-winning lighting and green designers from HKGBC, Cundall and Baseline Lighting Design Studio will share remarkable cases across industries to illustrate the market trend of sustainable lighting design.

Artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Home will be in focus at Smart Lighting Solution Forum, which will be co-organised with Asia-Pacific AI Business Alliance (AIBA) and Shanghai Pudong Intelligent Lighting Association (SILA). To be held on 7 April, experts from Tuya, Amazon and Bluetooth as well as other industry leaders will shed light on the application of these technologies in smart lighting products.

Fair websites
Smart Lighting Expo: smartlightingexpo.hktdc.com
Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Spring Edition): hklightingfairse.hktdc.com

Hong Kong Trade Development Council
The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body established in 1966 to promote, assist and develop Hong Kong’s trade. With 50 offices globally, including 13 in Mainland China, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a two-way global investment and business hub. The HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to create business opportunities for companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the mainland and international markets. The HKTDC also provides up-to-date market insights and product information via research reports and digital news channels. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus.

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Africa’s Grid Constraints Come into Focus as Regional Markets Push Toward Integration

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4 days ago

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June 26, 2026

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Africa

Regional power pools are advancing and renewable pipelines are growing, but the regulatory and financial architecture needed to connect them remains the continent’s most critical infrastructure gap – an issue central to the Power Africa Today conference at AEW 2026

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, June 25, 2026/APO Group/ –Africa’s electricity demand is projected to nearly double to 2,291 TWh by 2050, requiring an estimated $30 billion in transmission and grid infrastructure investment to unlock and integrate new generation capacity. Yet across the continent, grid systems are struggling to keep pace with rapidly expanding supply pipelines and rising demand.

In Nigeria, repeated nationwide grid collapses as recently as February 2026 underscore the fragility of aging transmission infrastructure. In East Africa, tower failures along the 428 km Loiyangalani-Suswa line temporarily stranded output from Lake Turkana Wind Power – Africa’s largest wind installation. Meanwhile, demand growth pressures are accelerating across North Africa, where electricity consumption is expected to rise by around 50% by 2035, driven by urbanization, desalination projects, and climate-related temperature increases.

Despite these constraints, generation investment continues to accelerate across Africa, particularly in renewables, gas-to-power and hybrid systems. However, without equivalent investment in transmission and interconnection, much of this new capacity risks being underutilized or stranded. This growing imbalance between generation and grid capacity is driving a sharper focus on system-wide planning and regional market design – issues that will be central to the newly launched Power Africa Today conference at African Energy Week 2026. The platform will bring together policymakers, utilities, investors and developers to explore how regional interconnection, cross-border trading frameworks and financing structures can better align generation growth with grid expansion.

Power Markets Experiment with Reform

Alongside infrastructure challenges, Africa’s electricity sector is undergoing gradual – but uneven – market reform. Most countries still operate vertically integrated systems dominated by state utilities, but a growing number are introducing competitive frameworks to attract private capital and improve efficiency.

Zimbabwe opened its electricity market to full private participation across generation, transmission and distribution in 2025, targeting $9 billion in new investment. South Africa is advancing one of the continent’s most ambitious grid expansion programs, with plans for 14,500 km of new transmission lines and 133,000 MVA of transformer capacity by 2034, alongside mechanisms designed to crowd in private financing. Kenya, meanwhile, has introduced open access regulations enabling independent power producers to wheel electricity directly to multiple off-takers, reshaping how generation assets interface with the grid.

Interconnected electricity markets are the foundation of Africa’s industrial future

Regional Integration Remains Fragmented

Efforts to connect Africa’s fragmented power systems are progressing, though at different speeds across regions. In Southern Africa, the World Bank’s RETRADE SAPP program, approved in 2025, is deploying $12 million to strengthen renewable integration and transmission capacity across 12 member states. In East Africa, the Ethiopia–Kenya–Tanzania Electricity Highway is now in trial operations at up to 2,000 MW, marking a significant step toward a more interconnected regional grid.

West Africa is also moving toward deeper integration, with permanent synchronization of the West Africa Power Pool expected in 2026. Analysts, including the African Finance Corporation, argue that such synchronization is critical to unlocking large-scale hydropower potential and industrial demand across the region. Longer term, full synchronization between the Eastern and Southern African power pools – targeted for the end of 2026 – could create one of the world’s largest cross-border electricity trading corridors.

Building Bankable Financial Architectures

While interconnection is advancing, infrastructure alone is not enough to create investable electricity markets. Investors consistently cite the lack of standardized offtake structures, creditworthy counterparties, and cross-border payment guarantees as key barriers to scaling capital deployment.

New models are emerging to address these constraints. Africa GreenCo, operating across Zambia, Namibia and South Africa, is helping to aggregate independent power producers under a single creditworthy intermediary, standardizing power purchase agreements and reducing counterparty risk. At a broader level, AUDA-NEPAD estimates that Africa requires around $30 billion in additional investment to complete priority transmission corridors and establish three fully interconnected regional trading blocs by 2030.

“Interconnected electricity markets are the foundation of Africa’s industrial future,” said NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber. “The question at Africa Energy Week is not whether integration is possible – the evidence is already there. The question is which regulatory frameworks and financial structures will get projects to financial close, and which markets will be ready when capital is looking to move.”

The Power Africa Today conference will run alongside AEW 2026, taking place October 12–16 in Cape Town, and will focus on the regulatory, financial and infrastructural architecture needed to build interconnected electricity markets capable of attracting institutional capital and delivering reliable, cross-border power at scale.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Energy Chamber.

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Business

African Development Bank Group and La Francophonie Sign Partnership Agreement to Promote Youth Employment in Francophone Africa

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June 26, 2026

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The agreement was signed during a meeting between the Secretary General of La Francophonie, Louise Mushikiwabo, and African Development Bank Group President, Dr Sidi Ould Tah in Paris, France

PARIS, France, June 25, 2026/APO Group/ –The African Development Bank Group (www.AfDB.org) and The International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) on Wednesday entered a strategic partnership to strengthen digital skills, employability, and entrepreneurship of young people and women in five African countries: Benin, Cameroon, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Madagascar.

 

The agreement was signed during a meeting between the Secretary General of La Francophonie, Louise Mushikiwabo, and African Development Bank Group President, Dr Sidi Ould Tah in Paris, France. The agreement will address a major challenge faced by countries in the Francophone world and across Africa: providing young people with access to opportunities offered by the digital economy and fostering the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs.

The partnership calls for the implementation of training programs in digital professions and entrepreneurship, in fields such as web and mobile development, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and data analysis. Participants will also receive guidance toward employment and self-employment, as well as support for innovation and business creation, notably through training camps, prototyping activities, and partnerships with incubators and accelerators.

The African Development Bank Group and OIF will also work with national authorities in these five countries and training institutions to sustainably strengthen local capacities and promote ownership of the programs by national stakeholders. An initial pilot phase, lasting 12 to 24 months, will be rolled out in the five partner countries, followed by a gradual expansion to other member states depending on the results achieved.

The African Development Bank Group is pursuing a bold agenda based on “Four Cardinal Points” developed by Dr Ould Tah, the third of which is ‘Turning Demographics into a Dividend.’ This is about strategically converting Africa’s rapidly growing and youthful population into a decisive engine of inclusive growth, productivity, and innovation through large-scale investment in human capital—particularly youth and women.

 

It sees Africa’s growing young population not as a risk, but as a major asset. With the right policies and investments, this potential can create jobs, help small businesses grow, bring more informal businesses into the formal economy, and equip young people with the skills needed for the future. By investing more in education, science and technology, vocational training, entrepreneurship, finance, and digital tools, Africa can help its people drive economic transformation, stay competitive, and build lasting, resilient growth.

The OIF said the agreement marked the first concrete step in its initiative to mobilize innovative and additional funding for its most impactful projects.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

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Events

Paddles up! Hong Kong marks 50 Years of international dragon boat thrills

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4 days ago

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June 26, 2026

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Hong Kong

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 25 June 2026 – With top teams from around the world gearing up for the hotly contested Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races this weekend (June 27-28), participants and spectators can expect a bumper programme of action, fun and entertainment along the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui – one of the city’s most vibrant districts known for its iconic skyline views and tourist attractions.

There is much to celebrate. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Races as well as 35th anniversary of both the co-organiser, Hong Kong China Dragon Boat Association, and the sanctioning body, International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF). The IDBF added to the occasion by announcing earlier this year the relocation of its headquarters back to Hong Kong.

Riding on the wave of excitement, the organiser, Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), extended the annual Hong Kong International Dragon Boat Festival period to 13 days (June 19 – July 1), beginning on the historic Tuen Ng Festival (Dragon Boat Festival) and concluding on July 1, which is the 29th anniversary of the Establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

As the headline international flagship event of “Hong Kong Summer Fun”, Dr Peter Lam, Chairman of the HKTB, said the Festival not only ran over a longer period, but also featured a stronger race line-up and more vibrant entertainment programmes than in previous years, offering an experience found only in Hong Kong for locals and visitors, while showcasing Hong Kong’s position as the Events Capital of Asia.

More than 220 teams from 16 countries and regions will compete for top honours in the world‑renowned setting of Victoria Harbour. This year’s event also introduces the special 50th Anniversary Fishermen Invitational Cup and the 50th Anniversary Championship, paying tribute to the traditional spirit of dragon boat racing.

Visitors will be able to enjoy a series of thematic activities along the Avenue of Stars, including a 22-metre traditional wooden dragon boat, a dragon boat-themed installation in collaboration with the new film Minions & Monsters, live music performances and a line-up of intangible cultural heritage performances, including martial art Wing Chun, Chinese juggling diabolo, traditional musical instruments ruan and guzheng.

Highlighting Hong Kong’s reputation as the birthplace of modern international dragon boat racing, as well as its strengths as a global hub city, the IDBF has taken a significant step in its long‑term global strategy with the formal incorporation of International Dragon Boat Federation Limited in Hong Kong on 29 April 2026.

“Incorporation in Hong Kong is not a conclusion, but a beginning. It anchors our Federation in the city where our international story started and strengthens our ability to serve our members and the global dragon boat family,” said Claudio Schermi, President of the IDBF.

As part of this new chapter, the IDBF has applied for funding under “the Pilot Scheme to Strengthen the Presence of Hong Kong in Asian and International Sports Associations”, which was recently introduced by the HKSAR Government’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau. The Pilot Scheme is an initiative designed to support Asian and international sports associations establishing their headquarters or regional headquarters in the city.

The Dragon Boat Festival has a long and colourful history dating back more than two thousand years. Held each year on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the day commemorates the patriotic poet Qu Yuan.

According to legend, Qu committed suicide for his beliefs by throwing himself into the Luo River. The villagers nearby raced out on their dragon boats, banging gongs and drums to scare away fish and other underwater creatures to stop them from eating Qu’s body. The tradition continues to this day, with dragon boat competitions taking place at locations across Hong Kong, each reflecting the unique characteristics of its neighbourhood.

Traditional dragon boat treats feature prominently during the festival, notably zongzi. These glutinous rice dumplings, traditionally wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed or boiled, are widely available during the festive period.

 

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