The Macao Cultural Affairs Bureau says it is giving four grants for academic research meant to prompt cultural exchanges between China, including Macao, and other countries.

The bureau announced in writing that one of the grants is for Zhao Xinliang of the Guangzhou Encyclopedia Research Centre to study financial systems used by the Portuguese administration in Macao between 1844 and 1911, and another is for Portuguese scholar Pedro Manuel Sobral Pombo of India’s Goa University to study the traffic in indentured labour through Macao in the 19th century.

Experts gave advice about which of 27 applicants should be awarded grants for such research, the Cultural Affairs Bureau announcement says.