Origin Launched SEED+ Rural E-Commerce Business to Target RMB 5 Trillion Rural Merchant Market

BEIJING, Aug. 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Origin Agritech Ltd. (NASDAQ: SEED), ("the Company" or "Origin") an agriculture technology and rural e-commerce company, today announced that the Company's new rural e-commerce subsidiary Beijing State Harvest Zhongying Network Technology Limited, Co. (ZhongyingNetwork) has been established and the new on-line application HUIYING has been launched to provide a rural e-commerce platform for merchandise across agricultural inputs to consumptions products.

The new e-commerce subsidiary Zhongying Network and its mobile app follow the strategy SEED+ Rural E-commerce with Blockchain Technologies, previously disclosed in March of this year (SEC 6-K filing dated as March 15, 2018). As described in March, the seed business is the core of all rural e-commerce business within an overall rural consumer market of over RMB 5 trillion. With twenty years of business experience and broad geographic exposure across China, along with a customer base of over 30,000 distributors/retailers and over 10 million farmers, Origin believes it is uniquely positioned in the rural e-commerce business to serve hundreds of millions of potential customers.

Through its new rural e-commerce business, Origin will significantly expand its business scope from its original corn seed to a wide range of products. The products to be offered on Origin's rural e-commerce platform will include, but will not be limited to, agricultural seed products (e.g., corn seeds, rice seeds, and vegetable seeds), other agricultural inputs (e.g., fertilizers and agricultural chemicals), foods, household products, and other consumer products.

"With the launch of our rural e-commerce business, we're ready to utilize the brand equity Origin has built in the rural regions of China and the strong trend of growing rural consumption," said Dr. James Chen, Origin's Chief Executive Officer. "We're excited with our new rural e-commerce business model, which we believe has many superior aspects and offers an innovative new e-commerce alternative to the consumers in thefast growing rural regions in China."

"The new rural e-commerce business presents a great growth opportunity for Origin, and more importantly it combines our current seed business in the rural regions with the technologies we have been developing, including the Blockchain technology in cooperation with the Elastos Foundation," said Dr. Gengchen Han, Chairman of the Board of Directors. "We believe the launch of our rural e-commerce business will provide significant value to Origin and our shareholders."

About Origin Agritech Limited

Origin Agritech Limited, founded in 1997 and headquartered in Zhong-Guan-Cun (ZGC) Life Science Park in Beijing, is China'sleading agricultural technology and a rural social e-commerce company, expanding in mid- 2018 from crop seed breeding and genetic improvement business to be a leading technology developer in new rural e-commerce platform and Blockchain technologies. In crop seed biotechnologies, Origin Agritech's phytase corn was the first transgenic corn to receive the Bio-Safety Certificate from China's Ministry of Agriculture. Over the years, Origin has established a robust biotechnology seed pipeline including products with glyphosate tolerance and pest resistance (Bt) traits. For further information, please visit the Company's website at: http://www.originseed.com.cn or http://www.originseed.com.cn/en/.

Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the federal securities laws, including Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements address expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and contain words like "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "will," "would," "target," and similar expressions and variations. Forward-looking statements address matters that are uncertain. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on assumptions and expectations which may not be realized. They also involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control. Some of the important factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those discussed in forward-looking statements are: failure to develop and market new products and optimally manage product life cycles; ability to respond to market acceptance, rules, regulations and policies affecting our products; failure to appropriately manage process safety and product stewardship issues; changes in laws and regulations or political conditions; global economic and capital markets conditions, such as inflation, interest and currency exchange rates; business or supply disruptions; natural disasters and weather events and patterns; ability to protect and enforce the company's intellectual property rights; and separation of underperforming or non-strategic assets or businesses. The company undertakes no duty to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments, or new information or otherwise, should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws.

SOURCE Origin Agritech Limited

Related Links

http://www.originseed.com.cn