BEIJING - China is enjoying a giant panda baby boom thanks to the nation's artificial breeding program, with a record 27 surviving cubs born so far this year.

Xiang Xiang climbs a tree at a research camp 270,000 square meters in size at the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in China's southwestern Sichuan province in April 2006. China is enjoying a giant panda baby boom thanks to the nation's artificial breeding program, with a record 27 surviving cubs born so far this year. [AFP]

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A total of 30 pandas were born in China this year through artificial insemination, including 11 sets of twins, Zhang Zhihe, director of the China Giant Panda Breeding Technical Committee told Xinhua news agency on Tuesday.

Although three died shortly after being born, the number of new pandas this year is the most since Chinese biologists began artificially breeding the endangered species in 1960, the report said.

Twenty-six of the surviving panda cubs were bred by zoologists in southwest China's Sichuan Province, with 17 born at the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center and nine at the Chengdu Research Base, the report said.

The other surviving panda was born in neighboring Chongqing municipality, while a 28th was born in the US city of Atlanta after being artificially inseminated with the help of Chengdu researchers.

The famously sexually inactive giant pandas are among the world's most endangered animals.

Their traditional homes have been the mountains of central and southern China, with about 1,590 of the "living fossils" believed to be surviving in the wild and 180 being raised in captivity in zoos worldwide, Xinhua said.