Beijing government has signed an agreement to send a pair of Pandas named Rshun and Damao to Canada March 25 for ten years.

Rshun and Damao will be accompanied by a group of animal protection experts during the flight to Canada according to the Chinese State news agency, Xinhua.

The two pandas will entertain Canadians in Toronto and Calgary for five years respectively. During the course of ten years, the pair will be receiving food from their motherland.

Free bamboo will be sent to them regularly after they settle there, the state news agency has reported.

The cost of bringing the pandas to Canada is not clear although the terms of standard loan whenever pandas are taken from China includes a fee of up to US $ 1 million per year and any cubs born during the loan will be the property of Chinese government.

Besides giving them for loans, gifting endangered pandas to other countries is part of China's strategy to strengthen relationship with its trading partners.

China in 1972 gifted two pandas: Ling-Ling and Hsign-Hsing to the United States after its President Richard Nixeon's historical visit to China.

Chinese panda diplomacy dates back to as far as the Tang Dynasty when Empress Wu Zetian (625-705) sent a pair of pandas to the Japanese emperor. In 1950s after the formation of Communist Party of China, Beijing government revived the panda diplomacy once again. From 1958 to 1982, China gave 23 pandas to nine different countries.

In recent years, China has sent Pandas to the U.K., Japan, U.S. Thailand, Singapore, Austria and Spain.

Pandas are mostly found in the Tibetan regions of Kham and Sichuan province. 

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