The People's Bank of China, the central bank, said on Monday that it would issue a set of gold and silver coins on Oct. 10 to commemorate the success of the country's maiden spacewalk.

The issuance comprises 30,000 gold coins, with a face value of 150 yuan (22 U.S. dollars) each, and 60,000 silver coins, with a face value of 10 yuan each.

The head of each coin will have the solar system design while the tail will bear a color portrait of a taikonaut conducting a spacewalk and the Chinese words "To commemorate the success of China's first spacewalk", the central bank said.

The coins are produced by Shenyang Mint and will be distributed by the China Gold Coin Inc., it said.

Zhai Zhigang, the first Chinese to walk in outer space, and the other two astronauts in the Shenzhou-7 spacecraft safely returned to earth from a historic mission Sunday afternoon.

The Shenzhou-7 that carried the three astronauts blasted off Thursday evening and flew 68 hours in space which included the 20-minute spacewalk on Saturday.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2008)