On October 6, in Fengguo Village, Tumenzi Town, Qinglong Manchu Autonomous County, Qinhuangdao City, Han Liwen, head of the Guofeng Apple Professional Cooperative and Fufeng Agriculture Co., Ltd., was busy with workers moving packing boxes to prepare for the apple harvest. Meanwhile, another head, Li Tiewei, was carefully inspecting the newly installed refrigeration equipment in a cold storage facility that had just been put into use.
"Once the refrigeration equipment is debugged tomorrow, the cold storage will officially start operating, and it won't delay this year's apple storage at all," Li Tiewei said, adding that thanks to the "climate loan," they had built four new cold storage facilities in just two years.
Qinglong Manchu Autonomous County is located in the Yanshan Mountains and is known for its "eight mountains, one river, and one farmland" terrain. Fruit cultivation is a pillar industry of the local agriculture sector. However, for a long time, planting and storage enterprises have generally faced the financing difficulty of lacking collateral, which has constrained the growth and strengthening of the fruit industry. As a core production area, Tumenzi Town ranks first in Qinglong for apple cultivation area, and its financing needs are even more urgent.
In 2008, Li Tiewei and Han Liwen jointly led the establishment of the Guofeng Apple Professional Cooperative, guiding fruit farmers in Fengguo Village to work together to enter the market. In 2021, the two also founded Fufeng Agriculture Co., Ltd., forming a business model in which "the cooperative is responsible for planting and storage, while the company is responsible for purchasing and sales." About half of the households in the village hand their apples to them for unified sales.
"In the past, there was no cold storage in the village, so apples had to be sold quickly after ripening. Buyers took the opportunity to压低 prices, hurting farmers' income," Li Tiewei explained. Previously, they had built five cold storage facilities one after another, but they were still insufficient. Building new cold storage required funds, but when they went to the bank for a loan, they had no collateral.
Bottlenecks in industrial development are also breakthrough points for financial innovation and service empowerment. During a grassroots visit and survey, staff from the county meteorological bureau discovered the financing difficulties of local fruit enterprises. "Planting enterprises lack collateral. Could meteorological assessment data be turned into collateral?" said Liu Jinyu, head of meteorological services at the county meteorological bureau. After learning about the plight of the Guofeng Apple Professional Cooperative, the county meteorological bureau began studying countermeasures.
After research and demonstration, the county meteorological bureau formulated evaluation standards for climate-friendly enterprises, conducting comprehensive quantitative ratings of enterprises from multiple dimensions such as climate suitability, meteorological disaster defense capacity, and agricultural product storage capacity. "Simply put, this evaluation system can prove that the local climate is suitable for apple growth, that apple quality is high, and that market competitiveness is strong, so banks are willing to lend," Liu Jinyu said. The county meteorological bureau rated climate-friendly enterprises, and China Construction Bank Corporation (ASX: 601939) Qinglong Branch innovatively launched the "climate loan," using meteorological assessment data as loan collateral to solve the financing difficulty of agricultural enterprises lacking collateral.
"The 'climate loan' is essentially a credit loan, but with an additional layer of meteorological data support, banks have more confidence in lending," said Wang Yuxuan, deputy president of the Qinglong Branch of CCB (ASX: 00939). In 2025, Li Tiewei successfully obtained a 1.5 million yuan "climate loan" and smoothly built two cold storage facilities. At the beginning of this year, he renewed the loan for another 1.5 million yuan and built two more cold storage facilities.
"With the 'climate loan,' working capital is more ample, so we can purchase more apples. With cold storage, farmers' income will also increase," Han Liwen said happily. The evaluation of climate-friendly enterprises is not a one-time designation. After enterprises use the "climate loan" to improve storage, disaster prevention, and other supporting facilities, their evaluation scores and ratings improve, allowing them to obtain higher credit limits, forming a virtuous cycle of rating improvement, increased loan amounts, and industrial upgrading.
"We will continue to survey other apple storage enterprises, promote the flexible and effective use of the 'climate loan,' help more enterprises solve financing difficulties, and support the development of Qinglong's fruit industry," Liu Jinyu said.