Chinese crop breeder Origin announces VP and Head of E-Commerce

Origin Agritech Limited ("the Company" or "Origin") today announced that Ms. Yaya Young will join Origin's senior management team to start and manage the Company's rural e-commerce business that was announced earlier this month.

"We're very pleased that Yaya would join our team to launch and lead our e-commerce business. She has impressive experience in the e-commerce business and various businesses related to rural China, which fits very well into our strategy of developing a Blockchain technology based rural e-commerce platform," commented Dr. James Chen, Origin's Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Chen continued saying that her joining Origin's management team represents an important milestone in the Company's new strategic direction and the Company would move fast to establish our rural e-commerce platform.

Ms. Young has been a successful entrepreneur in China with experience in e-commerce, rural internet-based P2P financing platform, and agricultural commodities exchange businesses. During her tenure as the vice president at Beijing Nongxintong Technology Group from January 2013 to January 2016, Ms. Young led a project under the Ministry of Agriculture to introduce rural leisure business to the urban population and cooperated with China UnionPay to develop 1.5 million rural leisure business clients. As the president of Hunan Tianxia Phoenix Cultural Tourism Investment Co, Ms. Young managed the tourism projects for Phoenix city in Hunan province between January 2012 and February 2013.

Ms. Young was the vice president at Imperial State Agricultural Commodities Exchange from March 2009 to July 2012 and was one of the key persons who founded and operated the first pork trading platform in China. The total pork trading volume reached RMB40 billion during the first three years of its operation.

"I'm very excited to join Origin Agritech and become part of the great management team for business in rural China.

Origin has established an excellent reputation after serving the farmers in China for 20 years," said Ms. Young, "I believe the consumption growth in rural China is a key growth engine for the Chinese economy in the next decade and a new e-commerce business model could help the rural China to benefit from the new lifestyles that have already been adopted by people in major Chinese cities."

"The joining of Yaya to our management team is a significant step as our management team launches the e-commerce platform," said Dr. Gengchen Han, Chairman of the Board for Origin. "I'm confident that with the credentials of both James and Yaya in building social network e-commerce businesses, and the market network Origin has accumulated over the last twenty years, we would jump start Origin's new strategy in rural e-commerce."

Ms. Young received her bachelor degree in International Trading from Hunan University and completed her Master's program for Regional Economics at Renmin University of China. She was a news reporter in Los Angeles for International Daily News during 2002 to 2004 and for Phoenix TV American from 2006 to 2009. During the period between 2004 and 2006, she worked at the investment banking division of Citigroup.