South Korea and Japan have belatedly reached an agreement on the amount of fish they can catch in each other's exclusive waters over the next 18 months, the Seoul government said Monday.

The two countries had been unable to renew their annual fisheries agreement for the July 2014-June 2015 period.

Negotiations for the 2014-2015 agreement began early last year, but they had been unable to narrow their differences over Japan's request to operate a 199-ton ship in South Korean waters.

Japan also wanted to reduce Seoul's fishing quota for cutlass fish, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

Under the renewed agreement, the two countries will be allowed to send 860 ships each into each other's exclusive economic zones, the ministry said.

"With the agreement, operation of fishing boats from the two countries each other's exclusive waters that has been halted since July 2014 will be resumed Jan. 20," it said in a press release.

Considering the short period of time left in the 2014-2015 season, the two sides agreed to apply the same agreement in the 2015-2016 period.

For the period, the allowed amount of catch in each other's exclusive zones will remain unchanged from the 2013-2014 period at 60,000 tons.

For the remainder of the 2014-2015 period that will end June 30, each side will be allowed to catch the average amount of catch in the January-June period over the past three years.

Under the latest agreement, Japan will be allowed a test operation of 199-ton fishing boat over the next five years while South Korea, in exchange, will be allowed an additional 50 tons in its catch of cutlass fish in Japan's exclusive waters from 2,100 tons, according to the ministry.

Also, South Korean ships operating in Japanese waters will be given a five-year probation period before they will be required to be equipped with a GPS tracking device.

The two countries had agreed to require all fishing boats entering their exclusive waters to be equipped with a GPS tracking device from July 2014. (Yonhap)