Baker & McKenzie has announced that it has entered into a joint operation agreement with a Chinese firm, allowing it to provide Chinese law advice to clients for the first time.

The joint operation with FenXun Partners, which is government by the laws of the Shanghai free trade zone, means the two firms can work more closely together to provide clients with a one-stop shop for both Chinese and international law advice.

The arrangement is not exclusive and Bakers may use other Chinese firms if FenXun does not provide the services that a client needs.

The firms are the first to be approved by the Shanghai Bureau of Justice to operate in this way.

Milton Cheng, managing partner of the Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and Korea offices of Bakers, said the deal would allow both firms to "provide seamless international and Chinese law advice to their clients".

He added: "It is not only the collaborative responses to client needs and joint execution of client matters that the joint operation permits. It also permits secondments of lawyers between our firms and exchanges of know-how, which will provide our lawyers with enormous opportunities to develop."

Yingzhe Wang, managing partner and co-founding partner of FenXun, said the firms had "common values and a common approach".

Under the joint operation arrangement the firms will be able to jointly work on client matters and secondments of lawyers between the firms will be permitted but the two will remain structurally separate.

Bakers was the first international law firm in China when it opened in Beijing in 1993. It opened a Shanghai office in 2003.

The firm has more than 300 qualified lawyers and consultants in China according to its website.

FenXun is based in Beijing and was set up in 2009. It has five partners listed on its website.