Large yellow croakers are thriving in deeper waters off Ningde city, southeast China’s Fujian Province, thanks in part to three decades of support from the Agricultural Bank of China.
Guanjingyang, located in Sandu’ao, is the country’s only natural inner-bay spawning ground for large yellow croakers. Rows of wind- and wave-resistant deep-water cages stretch across the bay. Ningde produces four out of every five farmed large yellow croakers in China, and the output value of its large yellow croaker industry chain has exceeded 20 billion yuan (about $3 billion).
“In the past, we relied on experience, judging conditions by water color and the weather, and often couldn’t react in time to oxygen shortages or disease. Now data speaks, and risks are much easier to control,” said Song Xiangguo, who manages a farming platform at Baiji Bay for a leading large yellow croaker breeding company.
The company’s 84 standardized cages each measure 24 meters by 24 meters and are 12 meters deep, with a footprint of nearly one mu (about 0.07 hectares). Sensors monitor water temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity and pH around the clock, uploading real-time data to the cloud, where it can be viewed on mobile phones, with alerts triggered when readings fall outside normal ranges. A deep-water cage yields 40 to 50 tonnes of fish a year, compared with 20 to 30 tonnes from a traditional small cage.
Financial support has helped drive the digital, eco-friendly and standardized development of the city’s large yellow croaker industry.
In 1994, soon after a breakthrough in artificial breeding technology for the species, the company’s predecessor secured a 300,000-yuan loan from the Agricultural Bank of China, marking its first step toward large-scale farming.
After a strong typhoon destroyed the company’s farming platforms in 1996, the bank extended a 500,000-yuan working capital loan, assessing the company based on its technology and growth prospects rather than relying solely on collateral. In 2018, as Ningde began a campaign to clean up marine aquaculture, the bank’s local branch provided nearly 70 million yuan to help replace old farming platforms, build new cages and install a smart system.
“Offshore farming has no collateral, runs on long cycles and is vulnerable to natural disasters. The bank looks at the technology, the team and the prospects of the industry chain. We began supporting the company at its start-up stage and have grown with it step by step,” said Shi Zhiping, president of the bank’s Ningde branch, explaining why the bank was willing to lend.
The company has also expanded into deep processing, producing dried fish, boneless fillets, soup products and ready-to-eat meals, which has tripled the added value of its products. It now produces 9,000 tonnes of large yellow croakers a year, nearly half of its output going to more than 30 countries and regions.
By the end of October 2026, the bank’s Fujian branch had provided more than 500 million yuan in financial support to over 2,000 clients across the large yellow croaker industry, including upstream and downstream businesses.
“Our assets have grown from less than 4 million yuan to more than 1 billion yuan. The bank’s support has always been our strongest source of backing,” said You Weide, chairman of the large yellow croaker breeding company. (Xinhua/GSF)
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