North Korea and China are speeding up their economic cooperation by completing a border bridge, a US broadcaster, monitored here, reported Thursday.

The bridge linking the North's northwestern city of Manpo, Jagang Province, with the Chinese city of Jian, Jilin Province, was dedicated recently, the Radio Free Asia (RFA) quoted Curtis Melvin, a researcher at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, as saying based on US satellite imagery taken on Sept. 29.

The two communist allies signed an agreement on the construction of the border bridge in May 2012.

The North built a customs office in Manpo, and is constructing a road between Manpo and its vicinity city of Kanggye, while China completed a customs office, a logistics storage and a free economic zone in Jian, Melvin said.

The moves are believed to be part of their respective efforts to create the Manpo special economic zone and the China-North Korea economic cooperation zone for bilateral economic cooperation, the researcher said. (Yonhap)