Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) on Sunday signed a joint-venture agreement with China's largest online creative services platform ZBJ Network.

The venture, which is the first in China by SPH's Digital Division, will see both companies develop a business-to-business bilingual online creative services platform, said to be the first of its kind.

The platform will be targeted at small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore, Malaysia and other South-east Asian countries.

ZBJ Network operates zbj.com, an online marketplace that offers creative services, including logo design, translation, website design and business development. The site, which was started in 2006, has more than six million registered users and 13 million service providers, with a transacted value of 7.5 billion yuan (S$1.5 billion).

The joint-venture agreement was signed by SPH's deputy chief executive Anthony Tan and ZBJ Network's president Wang Nan in Beijing.

Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, and Mr Zhang Guoqing, Mayor of Chongqing city, were also present at the signing.

The ceremony was held ahead of the Singapore- China Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation meeting, which started yesterday.

Mr Tan said that the partnership allows SPH to provide a one-stop holistic package for local SMEs that are searching for comparable creative services in Singapore and China.

He said: "Similarly, the businesses in China could also reach out to our service providers here. This is a significant move for both companies, which will, in turn, forge closer ties between China and Singapore."

Mr Wang said the partnership will leverage ZBJ's "extensive data, creative services, corporate clients and supply chain to provide design, marketing and business development services to the businesses in Singapore and Malaysia".

The name of the new platform, along with more details, will be announced late this year.