State President Nguyen Minh Triet and Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha Central Committee Most Venerable Thich Thanh Tu beat the drum as the last batch of metal was poured for the casting.

On this occasion, President Triet visited Da Chong Mountain, where the statue will be placed.

Legend has it that Giong was born after his mother tried to fit her feet into the footprints of a giant in the field. At the age of three, he suddenly grew into a giant himself, when invaders attacked the country. He asked the king for an iron horse and promptly chased the invaders out of the country with an iron sword, wielding entire groves of bamboo. After that, he and his horse flew into the sky from Soc Mountain in Soc Son District.

The cooper statue, depicting the hero with a thatch of bamboo in his hand flying onto the sky on his horse, is one of the major projects to celebrate the millennial founding anniversary of Thang Long - Hanoi in 2010.

The 85-tonne statue is scheduled to be completed by September 2010.

The project required a total investment of some VND50 billion (USD2.8 million), half of which will be spent on the cast.