Court decision needs change in financial solution for Panda House

The construction of facilities to receive a pair of Chinese giant pandas in Ahtari, central Finland, continues despite an unfavorable court decision on financing, the Ahtari Zoo said on Tuesday.

The project to build a Panda House and related infrastructures was hit with a court ruling banning public financial guarantees, national broadcaster Yle reported.

The city of Ahtari had granted an eight-million-euro guarantee for the construction. The Vaasa Administrative Court, however, decided on Tuesday the public guarantee was illegal as the Panda House would be a business.

The court took up the issue on the basis of a complaint from a private person. Jaakko Kellosalo, Chief Judge of the Administrative Court of Vaasa told Xinhua the grounds on which the appellant relied was that a guarantee or other security granted by a municipality must not put at risk the municipality's ability to fulfill the responsibilities laid down for it by law.

The judge also said that appeals against decisions of a municipal authority are quite common in Finland.

The Ahtari Zoo announced on Tuesday that its alternatives were to look for other forms of guarantee or to appeal to a higher court.

Juhani Haapaniemi, president and CEO of the Ahtari Zoo, told Xinhua earlier that the actual construction work of the Panda House began early this year, and the giant pandas would arrive in late 2017 as planned whatever the result of the court ruling would be.

He said the premises of the zoo had been taken as a temporary mortgage to get the necessary bank loans, and it would be possible to transform it into a formal one if a public guarantee was not approved.

Jaana Husu-Kallio, Permanent Secretary of Finland's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, noted that the appellant himself said he had nothing against the giant pandas' arrival.

"Wonderful animals are loved by all," Husu-Kallio told Xinhua, adding that the project's impact on tourism would be "very big"..

The Ahtari Zoo signed an agreement with the China national Giant Panda administration on April 5, 2017 on research and reservation of giant panda. The agreement is valid for 15 years.