China was actively considering cooperation with Japan in panda research, said President Hu Jintao on Sunday.

Hu, who is scheduled to visit Japan from May 6 to 10, made the remarks during an interview with journalists from 16 Japanese media organizations stationed in Beijing.

Japan has requested that China send a pair of pandas for the purpose of research cooperation. "We understand the Japanese people's aspiration," Hu said, noting he had also noticed that Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda had given attention to the issue.

Fukuda has expressed the hope that China would lend pandas to Japan for this purpose. His comments came a day after the death on April 30 of Ling Ling, a giant panda sent to Tokyo's Ueno Zoo in 1992, in exchange for a Japanese-born panda cub.

The exchange commemorated the 20th anniversary of the normalization of bilateral relations.

Ling Ling, born in the Beijing Zoo in 1985, died at the age of 22 -- the equivalent of 70 in human years. With the death of Ling Ling, Japan currently has eight giant pandas, all on loan from China.

China donated Lan Lan and Kang Kang as the first pair of giant pandas to Japan to commemorate the normalization of bilateral ties in 1972.

(Xinhua News Agency May 5, 2008)