Recently, China’s first “Marine VEP-Backed Loan” was officially signed and issued in Dongtai, a city administered by Yancheng. The Dongtai branch of the Postal Savings Bank of China granted a credit line of RMB 100 million to Dongtai Dredging and Land Reclamation Co., Ltd., dedicated to the construction of an intelligent eco-fishery project.

Marine VEP (Value of Ecological Products in Designated Marine Spatial Units) is a key metric for assessing the value of ecological products provided by marine ecosystems. By translating this ecological value into financing credit, this loan not only addresses the long-standing challenge of insufficient collateral in the traditional fishing industry, but also establishes a closed-loop mechanism integrating ecological conservation, industrial upgrading, and financial support.

The loan-supported intelligent eco-fishery project is a modern ecological aquaculture base built on the ecological resources of the Yellow Sea wetlands. The project aims to develop a full industrial chain covering “ecological aquaculture, intensive processing, and coastal tourism,” thereby advancing the ecological restoration of saline-alkali tidal flats and the transformation of the fishery economy. With a total investment of RMB 136 million, of which RMB 36 million was self-funded, the project faced a financing gap of RMB 100 million that could not be met through traditional collateral-based lending.

To facilitate financing, the Dongtai branch of the Postal Savings Bank of China, in collaboration with the Jiangsu Huanghai Wetland Research Institute (an affiliate of Huanghai Financial Holding Group), conducted a VEP assessment for the intelligent eco-fishery project. The project’s total value of ecological products was assessed at RMB 86.38 million. Based on this VEP assessment, the Dongtai branch pioneered an innovative “ecological rights pledge + green credit” lending model, successfully issuing a RMB 100 million loan to the project. An official from the Dongtai local office of the National Financial Regulatory Administration stated that the “Marine VEP-Backed Loan” is China’s first green finance loan in the marine sector issued based on a VEP assessment, using the assessed VEP rights as the core collateral.