HONG KONG — Pandas An An and Ke Ke, a gift from Beijing to Hong Kong, arrived in the Chinese territory on Thursday to much fanfare, two days after Finland said it would return its own pair over mounting debts.
Hong Kong officials welcomed the giant pandas at the city’s international airport with a red carpet on the tarmac and panda toys.
The Sichuan-born male and female will increase the total number of pandas to six, the highest ever in the financial hub. Some lawmakers called on the government to use the animals to boost tourism and create a “panda economy” by building themed promotions and infrastructure.
The 5-year-old pair will be housed at the city’s Ocean Park theme park and remain out of the public eye until December, officials said, so they can get used to their new habitat.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said the pandas would soon receive new names through a public contest organized by the government.
Workers at Ocean Park have prepared a giant enclosure for the new arrivals complete with bamboo leaves planted in Guangdong Province.
An An and Ke Ke’s arrival comes just after resident giant panda Ying Ying gave birth to twin cubs ahead of her 19th birthday. She was the oldest panda on record to have successfully given birth for the first time, Ocean Park said.
The cubs are still under intensive care and are expected to make their public debut in a few months.
Meanwhile, Finland will return two giant pandas to China in November, more than eight years ahead of time, as the zoo where they live can no longer afford their upkeep, the chair of the zoo’s board told Reuters on Tuesday.
The pandas, named Lumi and Pyry, were brought to Finland in January 2018, months after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Nordic country and signed a joint agreement on protecting the animals.
Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China has sent pandas to foreign zoos to strengthen trading ties, cement foreign relations and boost its international image.
The Finnish agreement was for a stay of 15 years, but instead the pandas will soon go into a month-long quarantine before they are shipped back to China, according to Ahtari Zoo, the pandas’ current home.
The zoo, a private company, had invested over 8 million euros ($8.92 million) in the facility where the animals live and faced annual costs of 1.5 million euros for their upkeep, including a preservation fee paid to China, Ahtari Chair Risto Sivonen said.
The zoo had hoped the pandas would attract visitors to the central Finland location but last year said it had instead accumulated mounting debts as the pandemic curbed travel, and that it was discussing a return.
Rising inflation had added to the costs, the zoo said, and Finland’s government in 2023 rejected pleas for state funding.
In all, negotiations to return the animals had lasted three years, Sivonen said.
“Now we reached a point where the Chinese said it could be done,” Sivonen said.
The return of the pandas was a business decision made by the zoo that did not involve Finland’s government and should not affect relations between the two countries, a spokesperson for Finland’s foreign ministry said.
Despite efforts by China to aid the zoo, the two countries in the end jointly concluded after friendly consultations to return the pandas, the Chinese Embassy in Helsinki said in a statement to Reuters.
