Taiwan tycoon Terry Guo, board chairman of Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Ltd, announced on Monday he will spend six million yuan (857,143 US dollars) to adopt six pandas in a panda breeding base in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

It was the largest donation the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center has received since its foundation in 1987, according to the center director Zhang Zhihe.

Guo visited the delivery rooms on Monday morning and adopted three pairs of panda cubs, nine-month-old female Yanyan ("swallow" in Chinese) and Tingting ("beauty" in Chinese), eight-month-old male panda Xiangxiang ("flying" in Chinese), female panda Xinxin ("happy" in Chinese), nine-month-old male panda Fufu ("fortune" in Chinese) and female panda Kangkang ("health" in Chinese).

The average annual cost of raising a panda is 50,000 yuan. Raising a panda to its life term (25 years on average) needs 1.25 million yuan. Guo's donation will be used to raising the six pandas for a lifetime, Zhang said.

His donation will allow Guo to visit the six pandas at anytime and an adoption billboard with his name will be set up beside the pandas' home. Guo may also get the latest pictures and videos of the pandas and publicize them with the images of the pandas, according to the center's website www.panda.org.cn.

Guo, 58, was ranked 160 on the March 6 version of Forbes list of the world's richest billionaires with net worth of 6.1 billion US dollars.

The giant panda, known for being sexually inactive, is among the world's most endangered animals due to its shrinking habitat.

In November, China had 239 giant pandas in captivity. About 1,590 other pandas were thought to be living in China's wilderness, mainly in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2008)