China plans to build a new centre where giant pandas will be trained to survive in the wild.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the £6 million centre will be located in Sichuan province's Dujiangyan city, according to Zhang Zhihe, the head of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

The facility is expected to house three to five giant pandas when it is completed within five years.

The centre will include 21.5 acres of an experimental zone and 2,800 acres of woodland.

Giant pandas are among the world's most endangered species. About 1,600 pandas live in the wild, while more than 300 are in captivity in China.

Zookeepers at the site hope to slowly train the pandas to reduce their dependency on humans.

In the initial five to 10 years, the animals will still live in cages in the experimental zone, but after that, those that adapt well will switch to living in caves and be trained to forage for food. They will still receive frequent check-ups and participate in artificial breeding.

From there, they will make the transition to living in a largely "natural" zone with little human contact, before being released into a large natural reserve nearby, Mr Zhang said. The entire process will require a minimum of 15 years, he said.

China started a giant panda training project in 2003 to teach the animals to live in the wild, but that project suffered a big setback. Xiang Xiang, a male panda who had been trained for three years, was found dead in a remote part of the Wolong Nature Reserve in 2007, a year after he had been released into the wild.