The government will send a delegation to Washington on Friday for a fourth round of talks on opening the South Korean rice market.

Led by Seoul's top diplomat for the Doha Development Agenda negotiations, Lee Jae-gil, the delegation is scheduled to hold separate bilateral meetings with delegates from 9 rice-growing countries, including China, the U.S. and Thailand.

The countries are sharply divided over the scope of concessions Seoul has offered in return for a possible maintaining of a quota on imported rice to within 4 percent of domestic consumption.

At the 1994 Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks, South Korea was granted a ten-year grace period during which it was allowed to keep rice imports under four percent of domestic consumption.

According to agreements struck at those negotiations, South Korea must conclude talks on the wider opening of its rice market by the end of this year.