Japan and Brazil have agreed on a "partnership program" for bilateral cooperation in providing technical assistance for developing countries, government sources said Wednesday.

The program between Japan, the world's largest aid donor, and Brazil, by far Latin America's biggest power, will be signed by high-level government officials of both countries as early as this month, the sources said.

After signing the Japan-Brazil Partnership Program, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, a government-affiliated aid organ, will dispatch a mission to Brazil to determine specific projects to be covered under the program, the sources said.

The sources said the program will target other Portuguese-speaking developing countries, including East Timor, a former Portuguese colony that won independence from Indonesia in a U.N.-held referendum last August. Most Portuguese-speaking developing countries are in Africa.

The partnership program is aimed at boosting "triangular" cooperation by Japan, Brazil and the poorer developing countries, with Japan providing financial support for cooperation between Brazil and those nations.

If Brazil accepts trainees from the Portuguese-speaking African countries and East Timor or sends experts to them to help their development efforts, Japan will finance the Brazilian technical assistance from its official development assistance budget.

Japan has so far concluded similar partnerships with several relatively rich developing countries, including Singapore, Thailand and Egypt. Brazil will be the third Latin American country, after Mexico and Chile, to conclude such a program with Japan.

In recent years, Japan has promoted triangular cooperation with developing countries as a major pillar of its official aid policy.

Technical assistance from relatively rich developing countries to poorer ones with cultural similarities can often become more effective and less expensive than similar aid directly offered by industrialized countries to the poorest Third World states.

Although Japan has retained its status as the world's largest aid donor for the past eight years, the growth in its ODA budget has been dramatically curbed in recent years due to Japan's tight fiscal condition due to the prolonged economic slump.

Brazil has a population of some 160 million and an economy equal to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in terms of gross domestic product. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The sources said Brazil has shown a particularly strong interest in extending development assistance to East Timor, which is now working toward independence under the supervision of the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor.

UNTAET is headed by Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Brazilian U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 after the abrupt withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial administration. Jakarta ruled the territory with an iron fist for nearly 24 years.