Pan Gang, chairman of Yili Group, delivers a speech at the annual meeting held on Jan 25. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd – or the Yili Group, which is the top dairy enterprise in China and the largest in Asia – held an online annual general meeting on Jan 25 to summarize its achievements in the previous year.

Chairman Pan Gang said Yili had overcome the huge pressure of repeated rounds of novel coronavirus epidemic. It had, he said, seen off the threat of rising raw material prices and increasingly fierce competition, with the company turning in its best operating performance and achieving a historic breakthrough in China's dairy industry.

As a result, at the start of December in 2021, he said Yili Group ranked second among the top 10 enterprises in the world's dairy sector in terms of total global patent applications and total invention applications.

Pan added that while achieving its own high-quality developments, Yili Group had concentrated its efforts to achieve gains in three major fields.

In 2021, Yili Group adopted a series of measures to enable employees to participate in its corporate results. Throughout the year, it had distributed various incentives to staff members, to a total value topping 1.2 billion yuan.

In terms of industry development, Yili reportedly led the revitalization of the local dairy industry.

Yili Group is included in the "Corporate Net Zero Pathway Report" white paper. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Pan said it had helped 5 million farmers and herdsmen embark on the road to prosperity and it supported more than 13,000 dealers to achieve profits.

Nearly 100 million yuan was invested by Yili Group by the end of 2021 to reward its outstanding partners.

Meanwhile, it had pursued contributions to social public welfare, donating 280 million yuan to help the frontline in the fight against the epidemic and investing more than 92 million yuan to protect the growth of young people.

Additionally, as early as October 2020, Yili Group became the first enterprise in the dairy industry in China to commit itself to achieving peak carbon and carbon neutrality.

In 2021, Yili started the construction of the country's first zero-carbon five-star demonstration area. It obtained the first carbon neutrality verification statement (PAS2060) in China's dairy industry issued by Bureau Veritas – the international inspection and certification group.

As the world's sole representative enterprise in the agrifood sector, Yili Group was included in the United Nations' first "Corporate Net Zero Pathway Report" white paper.

Yili donates milk products to students in Queluo Primary School in Yunnan province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]