Reuters and the International Herald Tribune on Monday said they had agreed to collaborate over business coverage in a deal that could lead to further partnerships between the two media groups.

From January 7 next year, IHT will carry a Business with Reuters section in its newspaper while the business pages of its website will be co-branded with Reuters and feature blogs, videos and interactive tools.

As a result, IHT, which is part of the New York Times (NYSE: NYT - News) group, said it would terminate its agreement with Bloomberg at the end of this year, including Marketplace by Bloomberg and Business Asia by Bloomberg.

Mike Oreskes, IHT executive editor, said the arrangement with Bloomberg was for market news only and under the new agreement Reuters and IHT would "cover the whole world of business and economics together".

He said there would not be any redundancies as a result of the deal.

The deal follows Reuters proposed merger with Thomson Corporation, the Canadian news group. The deal is awaiting clearance from competition authorities.

Mr Oreskes said initially Reuters and IHT would liaise over news planning from separate offices, but in time there could be personnel from each side based in the others' premises.

Further, while business coverage was the focus of this deal, conversations were beginning over the chance of collaboration on other areas of news.

Monique Villa, managing director of Reuters Media, said the deal was in line with one of the aims of the company's media strategy, which was to transform "from being just content providers to becoming true strategic partners for leading publishers and broadcasters". She said there were many other areas where the two could co-operate.

Neither company would disclose terms of the agreement though Ms Villa said it would save editorial costs for both sides, and generate advertising revenue.

The deal is non-exclusive, enabling IHT to take other content and allowing Reuters to supply content to other publishers.