Air Mauritius this week launched its first non-stop flight to Singapore and plans to build connectivity in Africa in May, according to a report in StraitsTimes.

The island nation is looking to Asia and the far East for new business, marketing itself as international financial center, Bloomberg reported.

International tourist arrivals in Mauritius rose 10 percent in 2015, according to StraitsTimes. The seven-hour flights between Singapore and Mauritius run three times a week.

Mauritius plans to consolidate existing traditional markets and develop new markets, especially in Asia and the Far East, said Harvesh Seegolam, CEO of  the Mauritius Financial Services Promotional Agency, in a Bloomberg interview.

Air Mauritius has direct flights to South Africa and Kenya, and by May plans to set up direct connections to Mozambique and Tanzania, said Ken Poonoosamy, managing director of the Mauritius Board of Investment, on the sidelines of the Mauritius Business Forum held at Hilton Singapore.

“Africa is waking up, everybody is concentrating on Africa, everybody sees Africa as a major growth pole. And Mauritius is just sitting off the coast of Africa,” Mauritian Deputy Prime Minister Charles Gaetan Xavier-Luc Duval told reporters during a state visit this week to Singapore, StraitTimes reported. “The potential between these two hubs is enormous, because trade and investment between Asia and Africa are bound to grow exponentially.”

Duval is also the minister of tourism. He invited Singapore firms to use Mauritius as their regional headquarters to invest in Africa.

“Our vision is to transform Mauritius into a smart island,” Duval said. “Our government is encouraging projects involving smart cities and new cyber cities that will include techno parks.”

The country’s low corporate tax rate of 3 percent has made it attractive to foreign investors. Mauritius also doesn’t levy capital gains tax or withholding tax on dividends, according to Bloomberg.

In 2015, the African Union warned that Mauritius’ operation as a “relatively financially secretive conduit” exposed it and other countries in the area to illegal financial flows.

Mauritius is trying to clean up its image as a reputable jurisdiction, Seegolam told Bloomberg.

To that end, the country promotes itself as an African success story that leveraged its geographic isolation in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 500 miles east of Madagascar, to grow from a trading way station to an investment hub.

Mauritius routinely tops African rankings for competitiveness and ease of doing business due to its liberal approach to regulation and taxation, CNN reported.

Surrounded by coral reefs and pristine beaches, Mauritius has strong cultural and commercial links to India, China and the east coast of Africa.

“Today, it can take less than one hour to incorporate a company,” said Poonoosamytold CNN. “In one day, if all the procedures are completed, you can start a business here.”

Tourism makes over 25 percent of the country’s GDP, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Agriculture and manufacturing are important sources of revenue but finance, including banking and business outsourcing, is on the rise, according to CNN.