Belgian zoo team hopes for new arrival in 2016

Belgium could welcome a baby panda in 2016, says the founder and director of the country's Pairi Daiza Zoo.

Eric Domb hopes the pair of giant pandas, who arrived at the zoo last February from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Chengdu, will conceive their baby naturally.

Visitors look at the magnolia tree planted by the Chinese President Xi Jinping, during his visit to Pairi Daiza Zoo last year. Fabrice Ooghe / For China Daily

Xing Hui, the 122-kilogram male, and his partner Hao Hao, who weighs 120 kg, are healthy enough to breed the next generation of pandas unassisted by artificial means, according to the zoo's breeding expert Liu Yang.

Domb made every effort to ease the lives of Xing Hui and Hao Hao long before they arrived in Belgium.

Pairi Daiza, ancient Persian for enclosed garden, was closed for a year because of the construction of a panda pavilion and Chinese garden, the two projects costing 8 million euros ($8.4 million). There is a Sichuan mountain, a bamboo forest and a cave with amethysts.

The pandas now have a choice of seven different kinds of bamboo, despite being thousands of kilometers away from their hometown, according to Tang Yueqiao, a zoo manager.

Liu, who is responsible for Xing Hui and Hao Hao's daily care, says the couple eats up to 110 kg of bamboo a day.

"Their daily intake contains a sufficient amount of rich nutrients," Liu says, confirming that the pandas are ready for babies.

"As a director of a zoo, who wouldn't dream of a baby panda?" asks Domb in excitement.

He admits that the pandas' arrival has boosted ticket sales and says the extra income is reinvested. The zoo also recorded a bump in share prices, according to Reuters news agency, which said in a February 2014 report that each panda cost $50,000 a year in upkeep and that there was an annual $1m fee to pay to China. Reuters also said that each panda was insured for $1 million.

Panda diplomacy, as it has been described, is the act of loaning the creatures to China's international partners.

Decades earlier, however, pandas were gifted to countries. China gave away 23 black-and-white bears between 1957 and 1982. Recipients included France, Mexico, Spain, Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union. Since 1982 China has preferred to loan pandas, or arrange tours.

Hao Hao, whose name means friendly, and Xing Hui, whose name means shining star, landed at Brussels airport last year in a pagoda-style cage onboard a cargo plane.

Their plane, arriving after a 15-hour flight from Sichuan in southwest China, taxied through an arc of water from the hoses of Belgian firefighters.

Domb says he will be thrilled if a panda is born in the Year of the Monkey, 2016.

"The monkey is very beautiful, but I'm also motivated by the monkey character in Journey to the West," he says, referring to the classic novel written by Chinese novelist Wu Cheng'en.

"The journey to the west is tough. Sooner or later your efforts will be rewarded, and you discover who you are through difficulties."

Apart from his enthusiasm for animals, literature and philosophy, Domb, who has traveled to China more than 20 times, is also a fan of Chinese tea culture and gardening.

About a year ago, Domb sat alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping for 45 minutes in the hall of the zoo's teahouse and exchanged ideas on culture and history with him.

"President Xi used to be the governor of Fujian province, a major source of Chinese tea, and he is a tea lover too."

Domb believes Chinese tea is the best in the world.

"I invited architects from China to build this teahouse in Belgium, because I wanted to share it with visitors and let them know that tea is found in China's Yunnan province, though many people always only talk about Japanese tea."

During Xi's visit to the zoo, the Chinese president and King Philippe of Belgium planted a magnolia tree, which symbolizes faithfulness and purity.

It has blossomed in a year.