The China Wildlife Conservation Association recently signed cooperation agreements with zoos in San Diego and Madrid, the Spanish capital, and is in talks with zoos Washington, D.C. and Vienna, China's government-run Xinhua News Agency said Thursday, describing the deals as a new round of collaboration on panda conservation.

San Diego Zoo officials told The Associated Press that if all permits and other requirements are approved, two bears, a male and a female, are expected to arrive as early as the end of summer, about five years after the zoo sent its last pandas back to China.

"We're very excited and hopeful," said Megan Owen of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and vice president of Wildlife Conservation Science. "They've expressed a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to re-initiate panda cooperation starting with the San Diego Zoo."

Zoos typically pay a fee of $1 million a year for two pandas, with the money earmarked for China's conservation efforts, according to a 2022 report by America's Congressional Research Service.

In November, Chinese President Xi Jinping raised hopes his country would start sending pandas to the U.S. again after he and President Joe Biden convened in Northern California for their first face-to-face meeting in a year and pledged to try to reduce tensions.