Trade ministers of South Korea, China and Japan will have a meeting later this week to exchange views on ways to expand trade and investment between the Northeast Asian neighbors, including efforts on a three-way free trade deal, the Seoul government said Friday.

The trilateral economic and trade ministers' meeting will take place in Tokyo on Saturday, led by South Korea's Joo Hyung-hwan and his Chinese and Japanese counterparts Hiroshige Seko and Gao Hucheng, respectively, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

They will discuss ways to improve economic cooperation among the three countries, such as the Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo free trade agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a new mega trading bloc encompassing Asia and Oceania.

Matters like wide-spreading trade protectionism, nontariff barriers and environmental regulations will be also high on the agenda, said the ministry.

The Tokyo talks will be the 11th gathering of trade ministers from the three neighboring countries, initiated in 2002, with the last one held in Seoul in 2015.

The three countries, along with North America and the European Union, form one of the three global economic pillars as they are home to 20 percent of the world's population and account for 21.2 percent of the world's gross domestic product. (Yonhap)