Maputo — Work on building Mozambique's new national sports stadium could be completed by July 2010, just before the football World Cup is held in neighbouring South Africa.

The contract to build the stadium was signed in Maputo on Friday between the Mozambican and Chinese governments, and the ceremony to lay the first stone is expected to occur in the first fortnight of April.

The stadium, budgeted at 57 million US dollars, will be built in the outlying Maputo suburb of Zimpeto. The stadium, easily the most modern sports ground in the country, will be able to hold 40,000 spectators.

At Friday's ceremony, Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang said that, with the new stadium, the government hopes to improve conditions for the practice of highly competitive sports, and the performance of Mozambican athletes and teams.

He urged that the construction be completed in good time, so that the stadium can be put to good use in the final phase of preparations for the World Cup.

The Chinese ambassador, Tiang Guang Feng, pledged that the new sports complex would provide a very different, and much more comfortable environment for athletes that the existing sports facilities.