Alibaba has given riot-racked Hong Kong a vote of confidence as it kicked off the world’s biggest capital raising of the year with an announcement that it would sell 500m shares to investors in a secondary offering.

Daniel Zhang, Alibaba’s chief executive, said on Friday that “during this time of ongoing change, we continue to believe that the future of Hong Kong remains bright”, calling the city “one of the world’s most important finance centres”.

The Chinese ecommerce company has begun the process of selling shares to investors, with one person familiar with the matter indicating that the books have already been covered. Of those shares, 12.5m are being offered to Hong Kong’s retail investors and will be priced at a maximum of HK$188 ($24), Alibaba said on Friday.