The Labor Ministry said Tuesday that the government is pushing for mutual recognition of qualifications in the information-technology sector with Japan as a follow-up to the September summit between the two nations' leaders.

The Ministry said that the neighboring countries will seal an accord for mutual recognition in the first half of the year between the Korea Manpower Agency, the national organization in charge of technical qualification testing, and its Japanese equivalent.

The ministry will forge the accord on a "case-by-case" basis after comparing 15 qualification tests administered by KMA with Japan's 13 national tests.

A ministry official said at the Seoul-Tokyo summit last September the leaders agreed to pursue joint training of IT technicians and mutual approval of qualifications in the sector.