Takashi Fukaya, the international trade and industry minister, is considering a trip to Washington in February or March for talks with top U.S. officials on the new round of global trade liberalization negotiations, sources at his ministry said Thursday.

The sources said Fukaya believes that such talks will be crucial in helping break a deadlock that is stalling talks on such negotiations before the summit of the Group of Eight major countries in Okinawa Prefecture in July.

The G8 comprises the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Russia.

Japan has already notified the other G8 countries that the stalemate over the new round of talks should be broken before the Okinawa summit so that the issue will not be high on the summit agenda.

Although the Washington trip is not yet fixed, the probable timing would be over a three-day weekend starting on March 18, the sources said. March 20 will be Vernal Equinox Day, a national holiday, which falls on Monday this year.

The 135 member nations of the World Trade Organization failed at their ministerial meeting in Seattle in December to set a formal agenda for the new round of global negotiations, making it impossible for the new round to kick off under the auspices of the WTO this month as hoped.

The WTO is the Geneva-based body that succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in January 1995 as a more powerful watchdog on international commerce.

The Seattle meeting collapsed due to sharp differences over beliefs on the relationship between the environment, labor and trade, the threat of a review of international antidumping rules and reductions in agricultural subsidies.

At the Seattle gathering, the U.S., in the face of strong pressure from environmentalist groups and labor unions, insisted on putting the environment and labor on the formal agenda for the new WTO round. Most developing countries vehemently objected to the move.

Japan, the 15-nation European Union and other countries stressed the need to take into account the "multifunctionality" of agriculture, such as environmental protection, when negotiating cuts in protection measures for domestic farmers. This view put them up against the U.S., Australia and other major agricultural-exporting countries.

In Seattle, Japan was on the vanguard of international calls for a review of antidumping rules in the new WTO round to prevent what it perceives as a highly protectionist abuse of the rules by the U.S., as some believe is exemplified by its recent steel trade disputes with Japan and other countries.

Strong dissatisfaction over the management of the meeting among developing countries, which together account for roughly two-thirds of WTO membership, also contributed to the meeting's failure. They strongly complained that the meeting lacks transparency.

Earlier this month, Fukaya visited Europe for talks with Pascal Lamy, a top trade official of the 15-nation European Union, and Mike Moore, the WTO director general, on how to launch the new round as soon as possible. In Brussels, Fukaya also attended a regular meeting of Japanese and EU ministers, which issued a special joint statement calling for an early launch of the new WTO round.

Even if Fukaya visits Washington in the near future, it remains to be seen whether the visit will lead to a breakthrough in the stalled talks over the new WTO round.

With campaigning for the U.S. presidential election in November now in high gear, the Clinton administration appears very unlikely to budge on the environment and labor issues even at the risk of losing support among powerful Democratic constituencies, namely labor unions.

During the possible visit to Washington, Fukaya also hopes to discuss with U.S. officials the state of the Japanese economy and individual trade issues, including the simmering rows over steel, flat glass and interconnection fees, the sources said.