Fulfilling social responsibilities should be a company's key development strategy, not just a short-term charitable gesture, according to Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co, one of the top dairy firms in China.

"Short-term or one-time donations and charitable gestures are not the sum total of social responsibility for corporations," said Wang Baoquan, vice-president of Yili.

Wang said Yili not only carried out regular CSR programs such as donations and planting a large number of trees, but also continued to help dairy-related partners to grow with the company.

By last year, the Hohhot, Inner Mongolia autonomous region-based company had provided financial support to nearly 1,500 ranches, and trained more than 5,000 dairy farmers.

Niu Shuangzhu, one of the diary farmers, succeeded in getting a bank loan of 440,000 yuan ($64,000) after Yili offered to serve as guarantor in 2014.

With the loan, Niu bought sufficient silage for his cattle for that year.

Yili sees CSR as key issue for development strategies of firms

"It was much easier and faster to get a loan after the dairy giant guaranteed it for me," said Niu.

Benefiting from such programs from Yili, a lot of people have been lifted out of poverty and some became dairy farmers.

Helping small and medium-sized companies or ranches in the dairy sector is just one aspect of Yili's work in this field.

On the other hand, Yili is also doing charitable work for people in need.

So far, Yili has invested 800 million yuan in CSR programs for children and the disadvantaged.

A program initiated by Yili in 2012 to give children safety education and training has benefited more than 200,000 children in 25 provinces and cities.

As one of the pioneers in CSR in China, Yili has done such work for more than 10 years, and has issued annual CSR reports for 10 consecutive years since 2006.

The company was praised earlier this month as one of the country's most prominent firms that have done excellent work in fulfilling its social responsibilities.

Li Jianming, vice-chairman of the China Enterprise Confederation, said Yili has grown into a new enterprise model in fulfilling social responsibilities after years of effort.

"Fulfilling social responsibilities in different ways can actually help small companies and individuals, and is not just for show," said Pan Gang, chairman of Yili.