A nine-year-old female giant panda named Ran Ran will move to Pairi Daiza in November, the Belgian zoo announced on Monday.
Ran Ran currently lives at the Shenshuping base of the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda in Sichuan province, China, from where she will travel to Belgium.
Pairi Daiza signed a 15-year co-operation agreement with its Chinese partners in 2013 to cover giant panda conservation, scientific research, and public awareness.
Under that partnership, the park received two giant pandas, Hao Hao and Xing Hui, in 2014. The park inaugurated their new habitat in a high-profile ceremony attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, as well as King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium.
Three cubs were born in the years that followed and returned to China with their mother in December 2024.
That left Xing Hui as the only giant panda at Pairi Daiza, but Ran Ran's arrival will soon give him company again.
Her transfer was made possible by an additional agreement signed earlier this year between the Belgian and Chinese partners.
The wild giant panda population has risen from about 1,100 in the 1980s to nearly 1,900 today, helped in part by conservation programmes.
