China's Yili Group upgrades its R&D center in Europe for innovation

Photo taken on Sept. 12, 2018 shows the ceremony of Yili Group to rebrand its Europe R&D center on Wageningen campus as Europe Innovation Center, at Wageningen University in Wageningen, the Netherlands. (Xinhua/Chen Jialiang)

WAGENINGEN, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Company Limited (Yili Group), one of the Chinese dairy giants, upgraded its R&D center in Europe to an innovation center at Wageningen University on September 12.

At the upgrading ceremony, Zhang Jianqiu, executive president of Yili Group, pointed out that the upgrading from the R&D center to the innovation center shows Yili's continuous efforts in innovation.

In 2014, Yili joined hands with Wageningen University in the Netherlands in establishing the Yili European Research and Development Center.

Since establishment, great efforts have been taken by Yili European Research and Development Center in establishing an early warning system for food safety, upgrading the first breast milk research database in China, and promoting the development of Yili and dairy industry in China.

In recent years, innovation has been regarded by Yili as the "core" power for the development of the enterprise. It will continuously promote innovation and enable innovation to be a "propeller" for its development and even the dairy industry in China, according to Zhang Jianqiu.

In the Global Dairy Top 20 rankings recently released by the Netherlands-based Rabobank, Yili has been ranking among the top ten in the global dairy industry and has been ranking first in Asia for many years.

From establishment to upgrading, Yili European Research and Development Center has covered different fields, built bridges between countries and continents, and integrated different cultures, which can be used to not only satisfy technological demand of the enterprises, but also directly transfer innovation of the research institute, said Zhang Yi, deputy secretary general of China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC), at the ceremony.

On the same day, the first meeting of China-Netherlands Business Council was jointly held by CCOIC and Yili Group, where participants jointly and deeply explored economic and trade cooperation between China and Netherlands in the current situation. (Edited by Hu Pingchao, hupingchao@xinhua.org)