Beijing and Mexico City are scheduled to kick off in June eight cooperation programs, city officials said on Tuesday.

"The themes which will be under discussion are construction of science parks, tourism, environment, the preservation and protection of culture, rural development, industrial development and investment," said Mauricio Camps, general coordinator on international affairs for the Mexico City mayor's office.

The mayor of Beijing will visit Mexico City in June to inaugurate the programs.

"We have been trying to achieve these programs for a long time. The visit in June will allow us to deepen all topics of interest to the two cities," said Camps at an event, which also discussed the city government’s, grant program for Mexican students to study four-month programs relevant to the city in China.

Mexico City plans to set up one science park in the south of the city with the theme of biotechnology and medicine.

Lorena Cardenas, student of economics in UNAM who studied at science institutions in Beijing as part of the program, told Xinhua that the design of Mexico City's southern science park, which will bring together private and public sectors, as well as academic researchers specialized in life sciences and biotechnology, will draw the experience of Beijing's Zhongguancun Science Park.

"It's hard to build science parks in this city due to Mexico City's dense population," Cardenas said.

Officials also gave details on the three scholarship winners in2008, who have been to Beijing to study science parks, giant pandas and distance education projects on Mandarin.

"Under the program, a veterinary has been sent to Beijing to study how Chinese zookeepers take care of the nation's emblematic animal," said Dr Esther Orozco, director of the city's Science and Technology Institute. "It gave rise to an exchange program including other rare species, and the possibility of a loan of a male giant panda," she said.

Mexico City's Chapultepec Zoo currently hosts three female giant pandas and the zoo would like to start a captive breeding program. "The knowledge the vet has brought back could go a long way to get this off the ground," she said.

The Mexico City exchange program offers up to 15 grants to students to spend four months studying in China. The budget of the program is 2.4 million pesos (171,000 U.S. dollars). In 2007 the program awarded seven scholarships and in 2008 it awarded three.