A diverse range of seafood dishes are displayed at the 2026 Guangdong International Aquaculture Products Expo. CHINA DAILY
Zhanjiang, a coastal city in South China's Guangdong province, is working its sea like farmland.
The city aims to emerge as a key growth pole along Guangdong's modern coastal economic belt and be a distinctive marine city with modern marine ranching — large-scale, industrialized aquaculture in open waters — at the heart of this endeavor.
In 2025, the aquaculture area in Zhanjiang reached nearly 79,333 hectares, the largest in the province. Its aquatic output has ranked first in Guangdong for more than 30 consecutive years, and the total output value of its fishery industry chain exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14.94 billion).
In 2023, the city issued a modern marine ranching development plan (2023-35), designating 39 ranching zones spanning about 619 square kilometers. Four clusters located in Zhanjiang Bay, Leizhou Bay, Liusha Bay and Caotan Bay are in operation, boasting a combined farming water volume of 19.17 million cubic meters.
City planners note that access to sea space is merely the starting point; the real challenge lies in managing these marine resources well.
Cages move offshore
Some 12 km off the coast of Suixi county, more than 100 enormous yellow rings float on open waters. These are high-density polyethylene aquaculture cages, forming Zhanjiang's first pilot project to replace traditional wooden fish rafts with plastic structures. This wood-to-plastic upgrade is being advanced earlier in Zhanjiang than in most other parts of Guangdong.
Gone are the rotting timber and crumbling foam floats of old rafts. Compared with wooden cages, high-density polyethylene structures feature greater toughness, corrosion resistance, a much longer service life and typhoon resistance. Such durability allows them to be anchored farther offshore in deeper, higher-quality waters.
Deep-sea farming relies on more than hardware. Breeding, equipment, cold-chain logistics, processing and trade must develop in tandem, and Zhanjiang has built its marine ranching around a complete industry chain. Within this chain, seed stock is the critical link that secures industry initiative.
Partnering with Guangdong Ocean University and Zhanjiang Bay Laboratory, the city has overcome bottlenecks in breeding species such as the Naozhou strain of large yellow croaker and golden pompano fish, putting its aquatic seed supply under domestic control.
Zhanjiang now hosts 480 seedling farms, including two national-level aquatic breeding farms, and leads the province in its seed output.
Ports and processing
Dedicated ports serve as the hinge between offshore marine ranches and onshore processing factories. Zhanjiang has selected Liusha, Jianghong, Lemin and Caotan as sites for marine ranching berths. The Jianghong-Caotan fishery port economic zone, developed with an investment of about 200 million yuan, is designed with 16 operational berths and supporting services for unloading, icing, refueling and supplies.
Processing capacity has kept pace. The city is home to more than 200 aquatic product processors, 43 of which are above the designated size and six are leading national agricultural enterprises engaged in fisheries. Their annual processing capacity tops 1 million metric tons, and Zhanjiang seafood is exported to over 40 countries and regions.
In the first half of 2026, the city exported aquatic products worth 1.5 billion yuan, up 4.5 percent year-on-year and accounting for 81.5 percent of its total agricultural exports. This means more seafood harvested from Zhanjiang waters is reaching dining tables around the world.
To promote the smart upgrading of marine ranching, Zhanjiang Bay Laboratory released a marine industrial intelligent connectivity system in June. The system links workboats, cages, sensors and control terminals that had operated under separate communication protocols.
Supporting remote monitoring, automated feeding and fault alerts, it delivers a homegrown digital foundation to advance smart fishing across full scenarios and boost the high-quality development of Zhanjiang's marine ranching industry.
