A nine-member panel was formally established yesterday to decide which two giant pandas will be offered as gifts to Taiwan.

Zhao Xuemin, vice minister of the State Forestry Bureau, made the announcement at a ceremony at the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwest China's Sichuan Province, the country's largest panda center.

The panel of panda experts will be led by Zhang Hemin, chief of Wolong's Administrative Bureau, who said it should have comprised people from the mainland and Taiwan, but that the island's authorities had not yet responded.

The mainland announced plans to send pandas to Taiwan following the visit of Kuomintang Party Chairman Lien Chan in May.

Zhao said people in Taiwan are eager to see the pandas arrive, and Dai Xiaofeng, a senior official from the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, quoted one opinion poll that said over 70 percent welcomed the offer.

Dai said no deadline had been set for the decision to be made, and that the panel would work at their own pace.

Chinataiwan.org quoted Hong Kong media as saying next March had been speculated as the time the pandas might be sent to Taiwan.

Set up in 1963, the Wolong Nature Reserve covers 2,000 square kilometers and pandas bred there account for 70 percent of those raised in captivity on the mainland, Zhao said.

(China Daily August 10, 2005)