South Korea and Canada will launch negotiations to craft a bilateral agreement on the protection of confidential information, a legal framework to expand the two countries' arms industry cooperation, their top diplomats announced Saturday.

Foreign Minister Park Jin and his Canadian counterpart, Melanie Joly, made the announcement as they held talks in Seoul on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral ties, according to Seoul's foreign ministry.

The two governments seek to create the agreement to stipulate procedures on the protection of military and defense industry information to be shared between the two sides.

The envisioned agreement will be separate from a bilateral General Security of Military Information Agreement signed in 1999, which limits the information-sharing agents to only the two countries' governments.

"(Under the agreement), private companies will be able to participate in the bidding for government procurement projects requiring the sharing of confidential information," the ministry said in a press release.

The two sides did not specify when the negotiations on the agreement will begin. They plan to create the official name of the agreement and work out other details during the negotiations, the ministry said.

During Saturday's talks, Park stressed the importance of bilateral cooperation on the critical minerals needed for the production of batteries and semiconductors. The two ministers agreed to work closely together to sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in key minerals at an early date, according to the ministry.

Source: Yonhap News Agency