A senior U.S. Treasury Department official will visit China and Hong Kong this week to discuss ways to implement sanctions on North Korea, the department said Monday.

Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam Szubin will visit Beijing and Hong Kong on Tuesday and Wednesday, the department said in a press advisory.

During the trip, Szubin will meet with senior government officials and private sector compliance officers for discussions on a range of issues of mutual interest, the department said.

"In light of the recent United Nations Security Council Resolution and Treasury and State designations against North Korea this month, this trip provides an important opportunity for discussions of ways to strengthen U.S.-China coordination in response to North Korea's destabilizing behavior and to ensure sanctions targeting the North Korean regime are as effective as possible," it said.

The trip came as the Treasury Department is in the final stage of putting together a package of unilateral sanctions against the North to carry out the Security Council sanctions and the recent congressional legislation tightening the screws on Pyongyang.

The new U.N. sanctions, the toughest ever to be imposed on Pyongyang, require mandatory inspection of all cargo going in and out of the North and ban its exports of coal, iron and other mineral resources, a key source of hard currency that accounts for nearly half of the country's total exports.

It also prohibits all small arms and other conventional weapons from being sold to the North, bans jet and rocket fuel supplies to the country, grounds North Korean flights suspected of carrying contraband and denies vessels carrying illicit items access to ports. (Yonhap)