'Panda-monium' as belgian Zoo prepares to host China's national treasures for 15 Years

The zoo's founder and president Eric Domb and his team are working round the clock to build a cozy home for the "Chinese ambassadors". Fu Jing / China Daily

Belgium is preparing for the arrival of a very important Chinese couple next spring on a trip that in scale and cost will outrival royal visits and superstar tours.

It doesn't get much bigger. For the next 15 years, the special guests will cost more than what it takes to look after 40 elephants.

Xinghui and Haohao, a pair of 4-year-old pandas from Ya'an in Sichuan province, will take up residence at the Pairi Daiza zoo and botanical garden in Brugelette, 60 kilometers from Brussels, where a 6,500 sq m area is under construction as their new home.

Earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo signed an agreement for sending the pandas. It will be second time Belgium has played host to the animals.

In 1987, Wanwan and Xixi were loaned to Antwerp zoo for six months. Although that visit created the wonder and excitement and drew the crowds, one young Belgian, Jonathan van Gysel, remembered his childhood visit to see them as less than satisfactory.

"You could only see them from a great distance, and separated by thick glass," he recalls.

However, this time the new couple's accommodation will be a marked improvement on their predecessors'. The environment for human visitors will also be scaled up in style and class.

Built on the walled site of a ruined Cistercian abbey, Pairi Daizi ("enclosed garden" in ancient Persian) has a reputation as one of the best zoos in Europe - and it already features the largest Chinese garden in the continent, containing cranes and red pandas.

Naturally, this is where the VIP guests from China will stay. The zoo's founder and president Eric Domb and his team have been in state of "panda-monium" for months as they prepare for the arrival of the two pandas.

Chinese and local workers are busy constructing the panda house, set to cost 8 million euros ($10.7 million) and expected to be completed by December. The 324 sq m house will include day and night chambers and a nursing room, with a constant room temperature of 18C.

Visitors will be able to visit the indoor and outdoor areas, which will allow them a close look at China's "national treasures".

Besides the living environment, dietary arrangements are also a big concern. Domb says he plans to plant 4 hectares of bamboo outside the zoo to feed the pandas, and he will also import bamboo from France and Spain.

He says he and his team are working round the clock to build a cozy home for the "Chinese ambassadors" and guarantees the special guests will lack for nothing over the next 15 years.

"We feel a huge responsibility in hosting them and seeing them breed," Domb says.

The female Haohao and the male Xinghui were born in 2009. Haohao is a daughter of Hua Mei, the first foreign-born panda who returned to China, as part of an international panda-breeding program.

Accommodating the new guests will not be cheap. Several hundred thousand dollars will be spent on them annually, making them the most expensive animals in the zoo.

"It used to be elephants," Domb says, "but the cost of one panda equals 20 elephants approximately."

Domb says the team in charge of panda care will be Chinese, believing their expertise is the best way to ensure the pandas are properly looked after.