Holland Center launched in China
Dutch Minister Ploumen for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation launched the Holland Center in Shanghai in China on Monday 27 October 2014.
Dutch Minister Ploumen for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation launched the Holland Center in Shanghai in China on Monday 27 October 2014. The center is aimed at strengthening the business collaboration between Chinese and Dutch companies in the agri & food sector. Customised help is being offered to businesses to increase the chances in the market and to track down suitable partners for cooperation. Moreover, forces are joined in the Holland Center to show together the strength of the Dutch agri & food sector.
The end of March 2014 the Chinese President Mr Xi Jinping paid a State Visit to the Netherlands and he had himself briefed about the successful Dutch agri & food model. He was very much impressed and asked to come to a strengthening of the cooperation. China is facing an enormous increase in the demand for food, particularly for high-quality proteins such as vegetables, dairy and meat. The Netherlands is particularly strong in these sectors and makes it one of the most productive and innovative countries in the world.
The strength of the Dutch model is the cooperation among government, private industry and knowledge institutes, the so-called ‘golden triangle’. The Holland Center is aimed at emphasising this successful approach and to come to an enhancement of the cooperation. Director of the center is Mr Edward Zhu, ceo and owner of the CHIC Group and President of the Agribusiness Association of CEIBS, the number-one business school in China. Co-director is Mr Aalt Dijkhuizen, former President of Wageningen University & Research center and currently President of the Dutch Topsector Agri & Food. Under their leadership, firms can receive customised help to actually come to (more) business. This holds for starting firms in China, but also for firms that already do business there and want to expand their activities.
The center is organised more precisely in the period to come with a limited group of firms, namely, CRV (cattle breeding), FrieslandCampina (dairy), Hendrix Genetics (breeding of pigs, poultry and fish), Priva (climate control in greenhouses), Rabobank (finance and advice), Refresco-Gerber (soft drinks), Univeg (vegetables and fruit), VanDrie Group (veal) and Corpus – journey through the human body (educational attraction). Wageningen Academy is the preferred partner in the area of courses and training on the Dutch side, and CEIBS on the Chinese side. The activities are from the very start open to new members who are interested in doing (more) business in China and who register as a member. There is a close cooperation with already running initiatives to strengthen the ties with China, such as NAFTC and Greenport Holland.
