Beijing, China
January 6, 2015

Origin Agritech Limited (NASDAQ GS: SEED) ("Origin", or the "Company"), a technology-focused supplier of crop seeds in China, today announced that the Company has received the renewed Bio-safety Certificate from the Ministry of Agriculture for its genetically modified phytase corn.

The Bio-safety Certificate was originally received in 2009 for our genetically modified phytase corn for a period of five years and it expired in August, 2014. Genetically modified (GM) seed products in China must undergo five separate stages of approval beginning with a phase one laboratory approval to the final receipt of the Bio-safety Certificate in phase five. Bio-safety Certificate has an effective period of five years and the Ministry of Agriculture may review additional data for safety evaluations during the renewal application process.

In addition to the original phytase corn seed, we now have four commercial hybrids with phytase traits in the Phase 5 - Bio-safety Certificate stage. More importantly, our next generation GM product glyphosate tolerance corn seed has passed Phase 4 - Production Test and is waiting for the Phase 5 - Bio-safety Certificate and our GM corn products with stacked traits of glyphosate tolerance and insect resistance (Bt) have progressed to the Phase 3-Environment Release Test.

Website: http://www.originagritech.com

Published: January 6, 2015