LISBON, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Portugal would work to keep the annual Dakar Rally despite its current agreement expires after 2008, the government said on Thursday.

    "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," Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, Pedro Silva Pereira was quoted by AFP.

    "We are willing to keep supporting this event in the future," he added.

    This year race of 15 stages is scheduled to start in Lisbon on Saturday and it will trek over 7,000 kilometers through Morocco, Mauritania and Mali after crossing the Mediterranean from southern Spain before finishing in the Senegalese capital Dakar on January 21.

    A record 525 teams have registered for the 29th edition of whatis considered the toughest and longest challenge in the world of motorsport.

    The first Dakar Rally started in Paris in 1978 and until 1995 the event always started in the French capital.

    Since then the race has also started in the Spanish cities of Granada and Barcelona as well as the French cities of Arras, Clermont-Ferrand and Marseille. Lisbon hosted the start for the first time last year.