Trade pact talks 'later this year'

Talks on a free trade agreement involving China, Japan and South Korea are expected to start in November during the East Asia Summit, a source from the Ministry of Commerce said.

The source told China Daily that negotiations will be long and intense but was confident of a "substantive breakthrough" on the agreement by 2015.

An agreement was reached in Beijing last month to launch negotiations for a three-way trade pact this year. This follows seven years of research and two years of feasibility studies by governments, industries and academics in the three countries.