A senior official of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government will visit Portugal soon to strengthen judicial cooperation, the Macao Daily News reported Monday.

Florinda da Rosa Silva Chan, secretary for administration and justice of the Macao SAR government, is scheduled to leave for Portugal on January 13 and may stay there for about ten days.

She was quoted as saying that the visit will result in the first direct contact between the Portuguese government and the Macao SAR government with regard to judicial cooperation. And a programmatic agreement is expected to be signed.

Only after the signing of the agreement can concrete judicial cooperation projects be carried out in the future, the official said.

During the visit, Chan will go to an administrative college, expecting that Portugal helps train personnel in the law sector for Macao, the newspaper reported.

(Xinhua 01/08/2001)