PARIS, April 20 -- Four global leading shipping groups, including Chinese and French giants, have signed a milestone Memorandum of Understanding to form a new alliance, the French shipping giant CMA CGM announced Wednesday.

The new alliance will enable each of the groups to offer competitive products and comprehensive service networks covering Asia, Europe, Middle-East and the United States, CMA CGM said in a statement.

Subject to regulatory approvals of competent authorities, the new alliance plans to begin operations in April 2017, and the initial period of the alliance shall be five years, CMA CGM said.

It added that other three members of the tie-up named "OCEAN Alliance" consist of Chinese mainland's COSCO Container Lines, Hong Kong's Overseas Container Line and Taiwan's Evergreen Line.

The four members said in a statement that "this new partnership will allow each of its members to bring significantly improved services to its respective customers. Shippers will have an attractive selection of frequent departures and direct calls to meet their supply chain needs, including access to a vast net work with the largest number of sailings and port rotations connecting markets in Asia, Europe and the United States."

"The Alliance will also bring service reliability and the most efficient integration of the latest vessels in a fleet of over 350 containerships," they said, adding that initially the deployment will cover more than 40 services globally, mostly connected with Asia, including about 20 services each in the U.S. and Europe related trades.

CMA CGM said further details about the new alliance and the transition plans from the four member lines in their current alliances will be communicated to stakeholders and the market in due course.

According to statistics of Alphaliner, the worldwide reference in liner shipping, the new alliance partners have a market share of about 26 percent in the Asia to Europe ocean trade route compared with 34 percent of the existing dominant Alliance 2M between Denmark's Maersk Line and Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Co.