The government is planning to suggest strengthening cooperation between Japan and South Korea in the area of disaster prevention, including an exchange of officials between the two countries, government sources said Friday.

Under the plan, South Korean disaster-prevention officials would be dispatched to facilities such as the Asian Disaster Reduction Center in Kobe, while Japanese officials from the Cabinet Office would be based at South Korean government entities, the sources said.

The center in Kobe is tasked with facilitating the exchange of experts on disaster prevention steps between its 23 member countries, accumulating and sharing relevant information, and researching the possibilities for international cooperation in the field.

The two countries will convene working-level meetings to increase information exchanges and facilitate mutual assistance in the event of a major disaster in either country and draw up plans to offer joint assistance to a third country in Asia should it be affected by a disaster, they said.

The government expects an accord on the cooperation to be reached at a bilateral conference to be held in Seoul on Saturday.

At the conference, the South Korean side is expected to report on a computerized map it is constructing to identify potential landslides, while Japanese officials are to present measures designed to counter disasters caused by torrential rain.

The bilateral conference was held for the first time in Tokyo in December 1999 as a result of an action plan drawn up by then Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in 1998, which pledged to promote cooperation in the disaster-prevention field.