Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, seen here in March 2006. China has urged a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea in order to help boost burgeoning trade and investment between the two countries, officials said. [AFP]

Japan's trade minister Toshihiro Nikai invited China's Commerce Minister Bo Xilai for Saturday's talks in Kyoto ahead of a scheduled bilateral meeting next week on energy conservation, said Masato Sasaki, an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. He said the meeting was fourth between the two and was aimed at promoting friendship.

The two ministers agreed to start working-level talks to compile a medium to long-term economic cooperation plan between the two countries to promote trade and industrial exchanges, Kyodo News agency reported.

Details of the talks were not immediately available, Sasaki said, adding that the talks were not intended to make any decision on a specific issue.

Tokyo's ties with Beijing have hit their lowest in decades over Japanese leaders' visits to a war shrine opposed by China, as well as disagreements over undersea gas deposits in the East China Sea, wartime history and territorial disputes.

Nikai's invitation to Bo at the Kyoto State Guesthouse, which was previously used during a visit by the U.S. President George W. Bush last year, was an apparent message to show how important Japan considers ties with China, Kyodo said.

During Saturday's talks, Bo expressed concerns about icy political ties between Tokyo and Beijing, Kyodo said.

"Political ties (between China and Japan) remains cold, and are also affecting economic relations and trade," Bo was quoted by Kyodo as telling Nikai. He told Nikai that exchanges of views would contribute to trade promotion and expressed hopes that they could strengthen economic ties through minister-level talks, Kyodo said.

The two ministers also discussed ways to promote trade and energy conservation measures amid high oil prices, with Nikai saying that he wanted to use the energy conservation forum "as a platform of Japan-China friendship," Kyodo said.

Bo is in Japan to attend a three-day bilateral meeting on energy conservation and environment, beginning Monday in Tokyo.

Nikai previously met with Bo in February when he visited Beijing, where he also met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

In a sign of slight improvement in their ties, foreign ministers from the two countries also met last week for their first bilateral talks in a year on the sidelines of an Asian economic conference in Doha, Qatar, although the meeting failed to resolve a row over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine which honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including executed war criminals.

Koizumi says he makes the visits to pray for peace, but China protests that his trips glorify Japanese's wartime conquests in Asia.