BEIJING (Yonhap News) ― China has notified Korea that it will delay this week‘s signing of a bilateral agreement to jointly produce movies and TV programs, citing scheduling conflict, a Korean embassy official said Tuesday.

Korean Culture Minister Yoo Jin-ryong and Cai Fuchao, head of China’s State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio and Television, had originally scheduled to formally sign the pact on Wednesday in Beijing, but Beijing asked Seoul on Monday to put off the signing because Cai will be unavailable to attend the ceremony, the official said.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Seoul and Beijing were rescheduling the signing ceremony, playing down the abrupt postponement.

“It is a just matter of scheduling conflict,” the official said. “Since the two sides already agreed on the official document, I believe that the signing would take place by the end of this year.”

The planned signing of the pact is expected to pave way for the Korean movie industry to make further inroads into the fast-growing Chinese market, which has a screening quota for foreign films.

If signed, films jointly produced by Korea and China will be treated as local movies in the Chinese market, enabling such movies to be exempt from the annual quota.

In June, after nearly three years of negotiations, Korea and China initialed the agreement to jointly produce movies and TV programs.

According to data by the Korean government, a total 893 movies were produced in China last year and seen by an audience of 470 million on more than 14,000 movie screens nationwide.