Portugal wants to keep Dakar Rally beyond ’08

The Portuguese government said it would work to ensure that the annual Dakar Rally continues to start from Portugal after 2008 when its current three-year agreement expires.

"It is in the nation's interests that the Dakar Rally start in Portugal and it will continue to be so after the next edition," said Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, Pedro Silva Pereira.

"We are willing to keep supporting this event in the future. You have to understand that others would like Dakar to start from their countries because of the media attention it brings," he added.

This year's 15-stage race is scheduled to start in Lisbon on Saturday and it will trek over 7,000 kilometres (4,000 miles) through Morocco, Mauritania and Mali after crossing the Mediterranean from southern Spain before finishing in the Senegalese capital Dakar on January 21.