Chengdu delegation promotes pandas in Europe

	Chengdu delegation promotes pandas in Europe By Huang Zhiling (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2006-08-07 12:24 People from Paris are welcome to visit pandas in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China' Sichuan Province, said Luo Bo, secretary general of the Chengdu Association for External Cultural Exchanges with Foreign Countries. Luo made the remarks at a reception to promote the giant panda and Chengdu which is home to 48 of the world's existing 1,500-plus pandas. Held Wednesday afternoon local time in the Sofitel Hotel in Paris, the reception drew some 30 French dignitaries as well as journalists. That Chengdu chose Paris as the first stop of its panda tour in Europe was to express the Chengdu people's respect for Pere Armand David and the French people, Luo said. David, the French missionary who worked in a remote church in Ya'an in western Sichuan, found the world's first panda in a village in the city in 1869. Like Paris, which boasts the world-famous Seine, Chengdu, which has been designated by China's central government as one of the country¡¯s first historically and culturally famous cities, has a famous river. The Jinjiang River, which crosses the city centre in Chengdu, has nourished the city with a population of more than 10 million for 3,000 years. Thanks to the two rivers, people in both cities are romantic and enjoy a leisurely lifestyle, Luo said. Chengdu, which has the world's only research base for the breeding of the giant panda, welcomes Paris people to visit the giant panda and Chengdu, he said. Accepting an invitation from Luo, Michel Fernet, president of the Press Club of France, said that he would like to visit the Chinese city. Fernet, whose club has more than 1,000 journalists, provided the space in the Sofitel Hotel for Luo's delegation to host the reception. He hoped that French journalist could focus on the giant panda so that the French could know more about the endangered animal species and the city of Chengdu. Ties and badges with the logo of the giant panda, toys of the giant panda and newspapers and brochures on the giant panda proved popular in the reception. Holding a toy of the giant panda from Jing Shimin, assistant to the president of the Chengdu Research Base for the Breeding of the Giant Panda, Francoise Delord, president of ZooParc de Beauval, said that she wanted very much to visit Chengdu and the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan and contributed to the conservation of the giant panda. As the largest zoo in France, ZooParc de Beauval has more than 4,000 wild animals. With only two lesser pandas from China, it hoped to adopt two giant pandas from Chengdu, she said. In November, the 2006 Annual Meeting of China Giant Panda Breeding Technology Committee will be held in Thailand. Delord told Jing that ZooParc de Beauval will contact his research base at the meeting, and that she would visit Chengdu and represent ZooParc de Beauval to talk about the adoption of pandas. The giant panda also attracted business leaders in the reception. Gerard Brown, president of Elg, a garment manufacturing giant in France, said that he hoped to co-operate with Chengdu to market a garment with the logo of the giant panda. It would sell well, he said assuredly.