China to lend pandas to Thailand
Date: 21-Mar-02
Country: THAILAND
"The panda is a political animal," said Lieutenant General Lertrat Ratanavanich of Thailand's state zoo organisation. "So when China presents this animal to another country, it symbolises a cemented bilateral relationship."
Lertrat said yesterday the pandas would arrive at Chiang Mai Zoo, 440 miles north of Bangkok early next year, making Thailand the fifth country outside China to host pandas. The others are the United States, Japan, Germany, and Mexico.
Thailand will take 59 million baht (960,000 pounds) from the government's 58 billion baht economic stimulus fund for October 2001/September 2002 fiscal year to build an air-conditioned cage for the animals, state-run Radio Thailand reported yesterday.
Lertrat told Reuters there were 120 pandas under the care of the Chinese government, 18 pandas living outside China, and about 1,000 pandas living naturally in the forest.