Tongwei Solar: from fish farming operator to leading global solar panel manfacturer

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠China's Tongwei Solar, known for its global leadership in solar panel production, has its roots in fish farming -- a business it started in 1982 and still thrives today.

This seemingly unusual combination has proven highly profitable. While many of the fish raised are destined for decorative ponds in rural Sichuan Province in southwest China, fish farming remains a significant revenue stream for the company, which has ranked itself among the Fortune Global 500.

"We've installed photovoltaic panels on our aquaculture farm, which is in perfect integration of our fish farming agriculture with photovoltaic power generation,"said Chen Jun, assistant general manager of Tongwei New Energy Co., Ltd.

Though the sites showcasing these integrations serve primarily as demonstrations, Tongwei operates numerous large-scale facilities across China that simultaneously contribute to food supply and energy conservation. This innovative approach addresses the land-intensive nature of traditional photovoltaic power plants.

"When building photovoltaic power plants, we often need to expropriate large areas of land resources. If we use a lot of arable land for photovoltaic power generation, it will not only take up extra land, but also reduce crop production,”Chen said.

Transitioning from fish farming to high-tech solar panel manufacturing in 2006, Tongwei has not only entered but excelled in the photovoltaics industry, becoming a Fortune Global 500 company.

"Tongwei Solar's current annual production capacity of solar cells has reached 90GW. As of the end of 2023, Our global cumulative shipments of solar cell batteries had exceeded 200GW, ranking the first in the world for seven consecutive years,”said Pang Sanfeng, manager of Tongwei Solar (Jintang) Co., Ltd.

Despite facing challenges like price wars and overcapacity in the photovoltaics sector, Tongwei remains optimistic about future growth. The company is also the world's largest producer of polysilicon, which is essential for manufacturing solar panels, and is expanding its production capabilities.

"Our global innovation R and D center is vigorously under construction and is expected to be operational within the year," Pang asid.

In December last year, Tongwei revealed plans to invest nearly 4 billion U.S. dollars in enhancing its silicon production operations, reinforcing its commitment to sustainable development and never straying from its original entrepreneurial spirit.

Tongwei Solar: from fish farming operator to leading global solar panel manfacturer

China is the "best possible partner" for Serbia to achieve its national goals, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an interview prior to Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming state visit to the country.

In the exclusive interview with China Central Television (CCTV) in Belgrade on Tuesday, Vucic praised Xi as a humble man who keeps his word.

"We are doing a lot of preparations. We have many dreams. When you run the country you have big aims, high dreams. You need to put your new targets always. And if we can reach these new aims, new targets, new goals, the best possible partner for that has always been, and it will always be, People's Republic of China. And it's President Xi, because President Xi, he keeps his words. I see him as just a regular, humble, modest man, but which is not promising a lot, but when he promises something, then he fulfills that. I cannot tell you whether we had bigger preparations in our railroad sector or overall infrastructural sector or industrial sector, economy sector or tourism sector, whichever sector, or cultural sector, because there are thousands of things that we can and we should learn from our Chinese friends," he said.

Vucic said Serbia's preparations for Xi's visit would help ensure its success and deliver benefits to both nations.

"Let me say it's a big visit and now we are going to be, after today, we are going to be fully devoted to that visit, and I believe that we'll be able to deliver the very best results for the benefit and for the sake of Chinese people and Serbian people as well," he said.

The president also hailed the positive effects on bilateral trade between the two countries since a free trade agreement was signed in Oct 2023, making Serbia China's 29th global free trade partner.

"And there is one very important thing. The free trade agreement that we signed in Beijing. That's a big deal for us, because now we have reached 6.1 billion (U.S. dollars of) overall trade exchange between our two countries. And I believe that we're going to double or triple within 10 years, or even more than that, with this free trade agreement, this is very possible and I believe this will open new doors, new gates for better cooperation even in the future," he said.

Bilateral trade between China and Serbia soared from 596 million U.S. dollars in 2016 to 4.35 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. In 2022, China became the largest source of direct investment for Serbia.

China best partner for Serbia to achieve national goals: Serbian president