South Korea is set to hold a second round of bilateral negotiations on opening up its rice market with six rice-growing countries this week.

A South Korean delegation, led by a top official of the Agriculture Ministry, will first kick off bilateral talks with Australia on Monday in Canberra. Monday's discussions will be followed by two days of similar talks in Geneva with Canada, Argentina, India, Pakistan and Egypt.

At the series of rice talks, Seoul is expected to focus discussions on maintaining its current mandatory rice import quota.

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.