[Courtesy of Xinhua News]
A pair of Chinese giant pandas arrived in South Korea Thursday to live at Samsung Everland's amusement park. South Korea became the 14th country to have the endangered species.
The pandas -- a three-year-old male named Yuan Xin and a two-year-old female named Hua Ni -- were shipped aboard a special charter flight from the western Chinese city of Chengdu.
Beijing decided to send them to Seoul following Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to South Korea in 2014.
China has a tradition of sending pandas to foreign countries as a gesture of friendship. It once loaned a pair of pandas to South Korea from 1994 to 1999.
The number of pandas stands at 1,864 around the world with 425 living in Chinese zoos and 50 outside China.
Everland will pay one million dollars annually to China as a donation for the animal's protection under a 15-year contract.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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