SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Business leaders from South Korea and Japan promised Thursday to strengthen cooperative ties in their efforts to facilitate a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two Asian economic powers, a local business lobby group said.

In a meeting here, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) and the Japan Business Federation, also known as Nippon Keidanren, shared the view that an FTA is needed for their economies and that they will work together on the matter, FKI officials said.

"The two countries should immediately sign an FTA though bilateral talks have stalled due to differences over the level of market opening," FKI Chairman Kang Shin-ho was quoted as telling participants in the meeting.

Fujio Mitarai, chairman of Nippon Keidanren, stressed that more efforts should be made to strike an FTA in order to promote bilateral economic exchanges in terms of both volume and quality, the FKI officials said.

The Japanese business leaders are to pay a visit to President Roh Moo-hyun Friday to exchange views on economic cooperation between the two countries, they added.

Negotiations on a free trade pact between the two nations have been in a stalemate since November 2004, as they failed to iron out differences on the opening of their respective markets.

The KFI is one of South Korea's largest business groups and represents more than 400 local companies, including Samsung Group, and Nippon Keidanren is a Japanese business lobby group consisting of more than 16,000 Japanese companies.