The Chinese mainland has shortlisted 11 giant pandas -- six males and five females -- out of 23, for "trial marriages" before the most adorable couple were determined.

The "trial marriages" among the 11 shortlisted pandas will last for at least three weeks to find out the most matching couple, said Zhang Hemin, a panda expert, at a press conference of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council held in Beijing Thursday morning.

The process of giant panda selection commenced in early August at the China Giant Pandas Research Center in Wolong, in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Zhang, director of the Wolong center and head of the nine-member expert panel for the giant panda selection, said altogether 23 candidates were chosen in the first round that lasted for more than a month and the final contest among the shortlisted 11 will last for more than 20 days.

The mainland offered Taiwan a pair of pandas in one of its goodwill gestures to the island province at the end of a historic visit by Lien Chan, chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) or the Nationalist Party in Taiwan, in early May. The expert panel decided in August that the panda couple were to be chosen from those living in the Wolong center, the largest panda protection zone in China.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2005)