Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura will visit Beijing from Thursday to call on China to start formal talks for a bilateral treaty on mutual cooperation in criminal investigations, ministry officials said Friday.

Sugiura is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart, Wu Aiying, and others, and return on the following day.

The treaty is aimed at enabling law enforcement authorities in both countries to cooperate in investigating suspects involved in crimes and in providing each other with crime-related evidence, they said.

Japan already has a similar treaty with South Korea. Japan has been in preliminary talks with China since June last year to work out such a treaty.

Sugiura is also planning to discuss how to proceed in discussions with China for signing a treaty on transferring the custody of convicts to let them serve their time in their home country.

In the five years to 2004, Japan's National Police Agency and the Justice Ministry requested investigative cooperation through diplomatic channels with the United States in 43 cases, South Korea in 27 cases and China in 14 cases.