John Lee Ka-chiu said on Tuesday the delegation would meet officials and panda experts in Sichuan province to discuss transfer procedures and that the bears would also need to undergo quarantine for at least 30 days.
But he did not give more details about the animals, such as their gender, time of arrival and whether a contest to choose names would be held.
“I know everybody is very excited about the likely and soon arrival of the pair of giant pandas – I am excited too,” Lee said ahead of a regular meeting of the government’s key decision-making Executive Council.
“The most important thing is to ensure [the transfer] is smooth and safe.
“I would like to see the Hong Kong government delegation make the trip as soon as possible to Sichuan so we can immediately discuss the arrangements.”
Lee said the government was working hard to get more information on the pandas which “everybody will be interested to know”.
He added that he had asked tourism minister Kevin Yeung Yun-hung to ensure the animals arrived “as quickly as possible”.
Lee on Monday revealed that the two pandas would arrive within months, the third pair given to the city by the central authorities.
The Post has contacted the park, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, and the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department for comment.
It is estimated that the public will need to wait at least two months before the two newcomers make their debut in the city, based on the quarantine requirements for Ying Ying and Le Le, the second pair of giant pandas Beijing gifted to Hong Kong.
They were quarantined for 30 days before they were flown to Hong Kong in April 2007 and went through another 30-day quarantine after arrival.
They made their official debut on July 1 that year and have been a firm favourite with Hongkongers since then.
The first pair, male panda An An and female Jia Jia, arrived in the city in 1999 to celebrate the “smooth establishment of the ‘one country, two systems’” governing principle.
Jia Jia died in October 2016 aged 38, or about 114 in human years. She was the oldest panda to have survived in captivity at the time of her death. An An died six years later, aged 35.
Ocean Park’s last annual report showed that sales of panda souvenirs and animal interactive programmes amounted to HK$600,000 (US$76,800) for the financial year that ended on June 30, 2023, an increase of HK$100,000 on 2021-22.
The figure represented only a small fraction of the HK$101.5 million worth of goods sold by the park in 2023.
