On October 24, the opening ceremony of the 12th Retail Management Master program was held in academic hall in Gaoyuan Building, UIBE. This program is jointly developed by the University of International Business and Economics and the NEOMA Business School. Vice-Chancellor of UIBE Liu Ya, Dean of the School of Continuing Education Zeng Gang, Secretary of the General Party branch Xia Haiquan, Deputy Party Secretary Wang Xin, Associate Dean Shi Xihong, as well as Chinese Office Director of the NEOMA Business School Ren Linghui attended the ceremony.

In his speech for the opening ceremony, Vice-Chancellor Liu Ya expressed his appreciation of the students for their choice of the Master in Retail Management Program provided by UIBE and NEOMA Business School. NEOMA Business School is a prominent business school in Europe. With the joint endeavor of the two universities, the students would surely broaden their horizons and improve their capabilities. Liu also expressed his hope that all students would make full use of their systematically-learned knowledge in face of new challenges brought by the retail format changes.

Zeng Gang, Dean of the School of Continuing Education, briefly introduced the program of Master in Retail Management. He said that this program is a successful corporation between Chinese and French high-quality educational resources and the curriculum fills the blank in retail management for Chinese education. In the evaluation of Sino-foreign educational corporation programs released by the Ministry of Education in February 2014, the Master in Retail Management program received very good feedback in the overall assessment.

In the afternoon, the commencement ceremony of 2015 graduates of the Master in Retail Management program was held in the academic hall in Gaoyuan Building. The ceremony was hosted by Zeng Gang, Dean of the School of Continuing Education. At first, Zeng Gang, on behalf of all faculties and students, welcomed the guests and congratulated the graduates. Professor Raymond Ouellet Julien form NEOMA Business School, corporative education expert Huang Zhenhua from School of Continuing Education under UIBE, as well as graduate representative Kang Yi each delivered speeches.

Post-graduate Director of NEOMA Business School Professor Ewan Ormiston, Director of Retail Management program Professor Daniele Pederzolt send video messages, in which Professor Raymond Ouellet Julien, as the representative of the French side as well as the degree-grantor, addressed in the ceremony. He send his congratulations to all the students who successfully obtained their degrees and thanked them for having chosen this program. He also expressed his gratitude to officers and all staff of UIBE for their long lasting corporation.

Huang Zhenhua said that the orientation of retail management corresponded to the current development of the retailing industry in China. The program is of great value and would help fill the talent pool for Chinese retailing industry. The graduates of this program are all treasures of this country.

After the speech of graduate representative Zeng Yi, Zeng Gang announced the official start of the degree-granting ceremony. Professor Julien and Huang Zhenhua granted the diplomas and course-completion certificates for the graduates. Shi Xihong announced the scholarship winner list and Xia Haiquan granted the certificates of honor to the awarded students. Zeng Gang ended the ceremony with a brief summary.

On October 28, Xia Haiquan met with Frank Bostyn, Chancellor of NEOMA Business School. Ren Linghui, Project Leader of the UIBE Retail Management Master program and Chinese Office Director of the NEOMA Business School, also joined the meeting.

Xia Haiquan pointed that, the corporation between the University of International Business and Economics and the NEOMA Business School is stable and effective. The enrolment scale, candidate quality and social impact of the Retail Management program are obvious to see. When it comes to contract extension of the program, the two parties exchanged their opinions and reached an agreement on the increase in enrolment scale and in tuition fee.

Frank Bostyn stated that the NEOMA Business School values much about the corporation with UIBE. They are willing to improve the program in multiple ways and hope that the program personnel in UIBE could work more actively with NEOMA Business School and push the program to a new level. Both parties are positive to the perspective of the program and are willing to strengthen their corporation to further develop the Retail Management program.