A comprehensive research and preservation facility for the germplasm of rare and endangered plants, wild animal species and microorganisms was completed on Sunday in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

With an investment of 148 million yuan (US$18.5 million) over the past two years, the "Southwest China Germplasm Bank of Wild Species" facility was established by the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) with the help of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

"The bank will be a key player in China's biotech industry and a pioneer in the nation's biodiversity conservation and bioresource development strategy," Chen Zhu, vice president of CAS, said at the inauguration ceremony.

According to the KIB, the bank sees itself as a leading storage facility of Asian species within 15 years of its foundation, and expects to make significant contributions to the development of the biotech industry and life science research by providing valuable resources, information and expertise.

Within the next five years, the bank is expected to collect 6,450 wild species, 4,000 of which will be plant seed species. Within 15 years, its collection will reach 19,000 species.

The bank comprises a seed section, an in-vitro micro-propagation unit, a microorganism bank, an animal germplasm bank, a DNA bank, an information center and a garden.

Stretching across an undulating landscape and climatic zones ranging from the tropical to the frigid, Yunnan is home to a multitude of plant species linked together by a complex network of phylogenetic relations, and accounts for more than 50 percent of China's plant diversity.

(Xinhua News Agency May 2, 2007)