The city government of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, announced yesterday that it would build a giant panda theme park in its northern suburbs.

　　The projected giant panda theme park, the first of its kind in China, will be built by expanding the existing Chengdu research center for the purpose of breeding giant pandas, said a spokes-man for the city government.

　　On completion, the giant panda theme park will cover 233 hectares and accom-modate about 40 giant pandas.

　　The Chengdu research center for the propagation of giant pandas is the only professional giant panda research organization on the Chinese mainland. It is also the sole center in the world which carries out researches on and breeding of giant pandas through relocating them to a man-made environment with an imitation outdoor ecological landscape.

　　There are now 38 giant pandas at the center, according to Yu Jianqiu, deputy head of the center.

　　There are about 1,000 giant pandas living in the wild, most of which live in mountain ranges in Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces.