China, Denmark signs agreement for 15-year giant panda research

A pair of giant pandas will head to Copenhagen for collaborative research between China and Denmark, a panda research base in southwest China's Sichuan Province said Wednesday.

Male He Xing and female Mao Er, will live in Copenhagen Zoo for 15 years, according to the agreement signed between the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens and the zoo, said a statement of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

The agreement was concluded one day after Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen visited Chengdu, Sichuan Province.

He also visited the panda pair and fed them with apples and Chinese bread.

The zoo has designed a panda house of 2,450 square meters, at an estimated cost of around 150 million Danish kroner (22 million U.S. dollars). Construction will start in November, and will take one year.

China and Denmark agreed on the program during Queen Margrethe II's state visit to China in 2014.

Since November 2015, the Copenhagen Zoo has sent veterinarians, keepers and nutritionists to the panda base in Chengdu. To better take care of them, zoo workers of the project also learn Chinese.

He Xing, born in July 2013, weighs 118 kg and is active in character. The panda is son of father Yong Yong and mother Cheng Gong.

Born in July 2014, Mao Er, also named as Mao Sun, weighs 98 kg. She is gentle and quiet, and loves to be alone. Her mother is Fu Wa used to live in Malaysia, while her father is Xiong Bang, a Japan-born panda that returned to China in 2004.