National panda park to open by end of this year

China's first giant panda national park - covering an area triple the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States - will open soon, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration said on Thursday.

The park's administrative office building is under construction and the park is expected to be operating before year's end, said Yang Chao, director of the administration's wildlife protection department.

"Giant pandas will be the major species under protection in the national park. Apart from them, more than 8,000 kinds of wildlife, including snub-nosed monkeys, will also benefit," he said. "The national park will not only boost the population of wildlife in the region but also protect their habitat for better biological diversity."