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, 2018.

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, together with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, jointly established the “European Research and Development Center”.

Since its establishment, great efforts have been taken by Yili European Research and Development Center in the fields of “early warning system for food safety” and “breast milk database” and others, such as to study and establish an early warning system for food safety, upgrade the first breast milk research database in China, and continuously promote the development of Yili and the dairy industry of 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 the development of Yili and even the dairy industry of China, according to Zhang Jianqiu.

According to the Global Dairy Top 20 rankings 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 thoroughly explored the economic and trade cooperation between China and Netherlands in the current situation.