On January 29, secretary of Corporation leading Party members’ group and Chairman Zhao Shuanglian met with Banco Santander’s Head of Global Corporate Banking Jose Linares and his delegation at COFCO Fortune Plaza, where both sides exchanged their views on global economic situation, cooperation opportunities, and issues such as M&A and Sino-U.S. trade.

Zhao Shuanglian extended welcome to Jose Linares for his visit to COFCO and noted that COFCO Corporation, which is undergoing industrial adjustment, will continue to focus on its core businesses of grains, oils, sugar and cotton and expand its global footprints. COFCO International, which is embarking on comprehensive integration for the moment, will resume normal operation very soon. He hoped that financial institutions like Banco Santander can reinforce its support for COFCO International and expected both sides to continue to expand cooperation. 

Jose Linares highlighted Banco Santander’s solid customer base in South America and Brazil in particular as well as its plan to boost its development in the U.S. He expressed his willingness to enhance cooperation with COFCO in trade financing and business integration and to contribute to COFCO’s internationalization efforts.

Chief Executive Officer for Asia Pacific of Banco Santander Antony Hung, Head of General Office of COFCO Corporation Liu Yun and Director of Financial Department Sun Yanmin attended the meeting.

COFCO Corporation Ranks No. 1 among “2017 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises with Outstanding CSR Practice” 
On January 28, the 16th China Development Forum supervised by Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC) was held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, where COFCO Corporation was awarded the first place at “2017 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises with Outstanding CSR Practice” by China Enterprises Evaluation Association.

Initiated and founded by Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC) in 1991 and registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China Enterprises Evaluation Association (CEEA) is the only national-level society with legal entity that boasts enterprise evaluation qualifications. 500 Chinese enterprises with outstanding CSR practice have been selected by CEEA from 1,800 enterprise samples based on “Guidelines for Evaluating CSR of Chinese Enterprises” promulgated by CEEA. The Guidelines cover ten areas including legal ethics, quality & safety, and energy & environment with a total of 63 indexes. This time CSR reports of enterprises under appraisal and online news-induced public sentiment data have been incorporated besides CEEA’s own data and data disclosed by each enterprise. COFCO Corporation scored 918.44 of 1,000 and came in the first place at the list. It also ranked among top ten of the list in terms of four individual criteria including legal ethics, stakeholder rights and interests, harmonious community and responsibility management. 

COFCO Corporation’s Total Profits Hit Historical High in 2017
In 2017, COFCO Corporation delivered an impressive list of accomplishments: annual revenue of RMB 482.5 billion, total profits of RMB 11.8 billion and total assets of RMB 538.8 billion.
According to the 19th Party Congress’ strategic plan of becoming modern nation that stands tall in the world, COFCO Corporation set its goal of being the first to develop into a world-class enterprise in the new era with the mission of enhancing its international competitiveness, becoming stronger, doing better and growing bigger, and assuming the responsibility of ensuring grain and food safety. It has shifted into the fast lane of rapid development by seizing the favorable opportunity of authorizing state-owned enterprises to engage in capital operation and continuously deepening the reform of state-owned capital investment companies.

For the past two years, COFCO Corporation has resolved contradictions through top-down design and mechanism innovation, thus comprehensively embarking on specialized development to achieve institutional rebirth. In less than two years since COFCO engaged in specialized reorganization, eighteen companies have become independent market entities with integration of human, financial, and material resources as well as production, purchase and sale. By integrating capital, production and marketing, COFCO has remarkably optimized its capital and assets structures, resource allocation efficiency, and major economic indicators besides noticeably improving its cost-effectiveness. As a result, many enterprises that used to suffer long-term losses have turned losses into profits and specialized institutional design has achieved initial success in practice. 
At the level of specialized companies, mixed-ownership reform is a major breakthrough for organizational form and operational mechanism. Over the past two years, six specialized companies solicited investment of RMB 27 billion through equity operations such as mixed-ownership reform, employee stock ownership, IPO, and setting up funds. As of now, fourteen specialized companies have either completed mixed-ownership reform or realized equity diversification. Feed, liquor, grain and textile businesses will have completed mixed-ownership reform by the end of 2018. By then, all eighteen specialized companies will achieve equity diversification.