FOUR northeast Asian countries have agreed to jointly develop a new transport service for cargo and passenger transport that will link China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. It is expected to kick off in early 2007, Xinhua reports.

Aside from strengthening economic ties between the nations involved in the deal, the transport service is also expected to promote regional economic development by improving the transport network in northeast Asia, which has been an impediment to trade growth in the past.

Trade between China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and Mongolia accounts for 21 per cent of world exports and 16 per cent of imports, according to a recent United Nation's report. The value of intra-regional trade nearly doubled between 2000 and 2004 to US$320.7 billion, the Xinhua report said.

The new ocean shipping service will start from the port city of Hunchun in northeast China's Jilin province and end at Niigata in Japan, making calls at the ports of Zarubino in Russia and Sokcho in South Korea. Other Japanese ports, including Tsuruga, Sakaiminato and Akita have also applied to be included on the port rotation.

The Hunchun-Zarubino-Sokcho-Niigata service, which also includes a rail aspect, will be the only direct cargo and passenger transport shipping route among the four countries based around the Sea of Japan, Ren Puyu, the Vice Mayor of Hunchun was cited as saying in the report.

Container ships deployed on the route will make the round voyage once a week, and it is forecast to carry at least 12,000 TEU each year.

"The new route would help move more minerals, timber, oil and grain from China and Russia to South Korea, Japan and the European countries, and draw in more foreign capital from Japan and South Korea," said Mr Ren.

It is estimated that a one-way trip on the new service will take one-and-a-half days, greatly reducing the time it takes at present to transport goods from Hunchun to Japan via the Chinese port city of Dalian in Liaoning province, which is more than 1,000 kilometres away from Hunchun.

The agreement to develop the trade route was signed earlier this month in Changchun, the provincial capital of Jilin, between the government of Hunchun, Russia's Primorsky Region Berkut Company, South Korea's Dongchun Shipping Limited Company, and Japan's Economic Research Institute for northeast Asia.