The Postal and Telecommunication Services of China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government will issue a set of new stamps on January 28 to mark the Year of Dragon which begins on February 5 according to the Chinese lunar calendar.

The stamp has a face value of 5.5 patacas (about 0.69 U.S.dollars) and a total of one million pieces will be issued, according to official sources at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

In the meantime, some relevant products such as the souvenir sheet, postcard, first-day cover and introduction paper in the set will be issued.

Macao put into circulation four sets of stamps in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 to mark the years of mouse, ox, tiger and rabbit.

Since ancient times, the Chinese have been using 12 kinds of animals to symbolize every 12 years periodically. However, dragon is the only fictitious divine animal in Chinese mythology while all the other 11 kinds of animals do exist in the world.