South Korea and Japan have agreed to maintain the amount of fish they can each catch in each other’s exclusive waters over the next 12 months despite Japan’s earlier demand to cut the amount of South Korea’s catch of the popular cutlass fish, the Seoul government said Monday.

Under the agreement reached Friday, both countries will be allowed to send 860 ships each into one another’s exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and catch up to 60,000 tons of fish, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

The agreement will be effective as of July 1 and be valid for the next 12 months.

All the figures under the latest agreement remain unchanged from the previous year, but Tokyo had earlier asked to lower Seoul’s catch of cutlass fish in its waters from 2,100 tons to 1,575 tons.

“The two sides agreed to keep the amounts unchanged from last year as they recognized the possibility of an increase in illegal fishing in their waters following a failure to reach agreement prior to the start of the fishing season on July 1 and the negative impact it may have on Korea-Japan relations,” the ministry said in a press release.(Yonhap News)