Japan and China are to join forces to develop a fourth-generation cellular telephone combining Japan's skill in technology with China's huge potential market, AFP reported.

Despite frequent political tension between the Asian neighbors, officials of the two governments will meet in Tokyo on Friday to launch the project for the next-generation phone, said the official of Japan's Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

"During the meeting, we plan to sign a basic agreement to cooperate in research and development in order to secure a global standard by taking advantage of our strengths," the official said.

Similar governmental meetings will be held regularly and the two nations will set up a forum of industrialists, academics and officials, he said.

Fourth-generation cellular phones, expected to come into practical use around 2010, will be able to transmit data as quickly as optical fiber, dramatically improving the streaming of high-quality images.

Japan has been at the forefront of third-generation (3G) telephones, which allow Internet service, online banking and other advanced features. Most of the world has been slower to catch on amid concern about the high price of 3G.

Japan's biggest mobile provider NTT DoCoMo, which introduced 3G in 2001, plans to abolish earlier-generation phones altogether by 2012.

China, in turn, is expected to see soaring growth in its mobile sector.

But Japanese mobile phone makers' share of the Chinese market is only a few percent, taking a back seat to European counterparts such as Finland's Nokia, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily.

China had 334.82 million cell phone users as of the end of 2004, representing 25.9 percent of its population.

China is Japan's biggest commercial partner, with Japanese firms drawn to the country's vast labor pool and growing consumer market despite frequent political tension between the nations, largely over wartime memories.

(China Daily via agencies August 25, 2005)