"We have decided from the very beginning that we wanted to be a true Chinese player," the president of a European bio-innovation company said about its success in penetrating the Chinese market.

The Danish company Novozymes, the world leader in bio-innovation, is currently developing its second generation biofuel from agricultural residues, in partnership with China's largest oils and food importer and exporter COFCO, and the Chinese oil and energy giant Sinopec.

"We have been in China for a long, long time," Novozymes Europe President Lars Hansen said in an interview with Xinhua Wednesday.

Novozymes established its Chinese regional headquarters in Beijing early in 1997, and China has now become its second biggest partner country after the United States in terms of individual market and sales.

"We have made sure that we have a full range of activities in China reflecting our commitment to China and the Chinese market," Hansen said. The company's activities range from research and development to manufacturing and marketing.

Hansen said that Novozymes has spent a lot of time developing products which suit the Chinese market. "We have had a good collaboration with our partners and customers in China from the very beginning," he said.

The president also said that his company attaches great importance to intellectual property and spends a lot of money on research. However, the company has never encountered major intellectual property rights breaches, he added.

"We don't envision China in any other way than we envision other countries. We use the Chinese patent laws and issue patents in China like we do anywhere else," Hansen said.

Though Novozymes' new advanced biofuel is not yet commercialized in China, Hansen believes that the "Beijing central government and also provincial governments are very interested in applying green technologies."

According to Hansen, investing in biofuel would create more jobs in rural and agricultural areas, reduce dependency on imported oil and develop a greener transport sector.

"This is win-win-win for China we believe," he concluded.