The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, has issued a set of golden and silver coins to commemorate the 80th founding anniversary of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), which falls on August 1 this year.

The set of coins, including a golden coin and a silver one, were issued by the central bank on Saturday as legal tender.

The obverse side of both coins bears the design of PLA's oriflamme, images of China's armed forces figures and the engraving of "PLA's 80th Founding Anniversary" in Chinese, marked together with the name of the country and the year.

The back side of the golden coin carries the design of the venue of the Gutian Meeting held in the late 1920s. During the meeting, founding fathers of the PLA agreed on a series of guiding principles, which were widely believed to be crucial to the development of the PLA.

The reverse side of the silver coin displays modern weaponry equipment of the PLA.

The golden coin, 10,000 of which were issued for circulation and 27 millimeters in diameter, is made of 1/2 ounce of pure gold, with a face value of 200 yuan (US$25.7) each.

The silver coin, 30,000 of which were issued for circulation and 40 millimeters in diameter, is made of one ounce of pure silver with a face value of 10 yuan (US$1.2).

(Xinhua News Agency July 29, 2007)