Universities in Macao and mainland China have agreed to make arrangements for sharing resources for teaching the Portuguese language, the University of Macau says.

Representatives of the universities concerned signed on Monday an agreement to arrange ways to pass borrowed books and other documents from one institution to another, and to catalogue jointly their materials written in Portuguese, the University of Macau announced in writing.

This will also prompt the joint production of new materials in Portuguese, the announcement says, citing University of Macau Vice-rector Rui Martins.

Mr Martins’s university has taken the lead in forming alliances among academic libraries in Macao and the Portuguese-speaking world on one hand, and among academic libraries in Macao and mainland China on the other, its announcement says.

Last month a report on Rádio Macau quoted Mr Martins as saying 20 mainland Chinese universities that teach Portuguese and 20 institutions of higher education in lusophone countries would form a library alliance.