NORTHERN China's Inner Mongolia has signed a deal with the Hebei provincial government which agrees to assign a coastal tract on the Bohai Sea in Tangshan, a neighbouring city of Tianjin, to develop a seaport primarily for the use of the inland territory, Xinhua reports.

Hebei will give 40 kilometres of land at Tangshan's Caofeidian New District for Inner Mongolian use to build a harbour-front industrial park for manufacturing and hi-tech industry and plan together with the latter to build four terminals for container, coal, ore, liquid chemical and one for multi-purpose there. Hebei will also give Inner Mongolia 10 kilometres of land at the Leting New District to build a chemical industrial park.

Inner Mongolia has started building a rail line for coal connecting its Erdos city to Caofeidian while another line connecting Xilin Gol and Caofeidian is being planned.

Earlier in February, Inner Mongolian officials also visited Shanxi province and entered economic cooperation agreement with the latter, agreeing to strengthen cooperation on road and rail transport with emphasis on the coal industry.

Inner Mongolia has been working on opening itself up in recent years and has signed agreements with Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjing and Hubei provinces, as well as Beijing, and is also expanding its strategic cooperation partnership with Tianjin and Zhejiang provinces. The region also plans to strengthen economic cooperation with Russia and Mongolia to attract foreign investors.