China's central bank said yesterday it will issue 44 commemorative coins in 2004, marking such events as 100th anniversary of the birth of late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and the 50th anniversary of the country's legislature, the People's Congress. An official with the People's Bank said that the remaining six of the eight categories included giant pandas, the lantern festival, Buddhist figure Kwan-yin, the literary classic Pilgrimage to the West, grotto art and the lunar Year of the Rooster.