South Korea will hold another round of trilateral talks with China and Japan this week on their planned free trade agreement, a related government ministry here said Sunday.

The two-day working-level negotiations are scheduled to open in Seoul on Monday, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The upcoming session will mark the 10th round of its kind.

The leading Northeast Asian economies launched the talks in 2012 to forge a "comprehensive and high-quality" agreement that can promote the flow of goods and services.

The three parties have been in discussions not only on goods, services and investments but also on the country of origin rules, customs, sanitary inspections, e-commerce, intellectual property rights, environment and technology barriers.

The previous round of talks was held in Tokyo in January.

South Korea will be represented by Deputy Trade Minister Kim Hak-do in this week's negotiations. His counterparts will be Wang Shouwen, China's vice commerce minister, and Keiichi Katakami, Japan's deputy foreign minister for economic affairs.

In November last year, the leaders of the three nations agreed at their summit to speed up efforts to produce a "high-level and mutually beneficial" deal. (Yonhap)