Japan will propose to China that the two nations establish a high-level regular forum for dialogue on matters related to the World Trade Organization, government sources said Friday.

The sources said that Japan hopes the proposed forum -- which would be the third of its kind between Japan and one of its trading partners -- will be established by next spring, at the latest.

Japan already has similar high-level forums on WTO matters with the 15-nation European Union and South Korea. China is expected to be admitted to the Geneva-based watchdog on international commerce as early as the end of this year.

It is possible that Japan and China will formally agree to establish the forum when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji meets with Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in mid-October, the sources said.

Zhu, economic czar and a champion of China's WTO membership, plans to visit Japan for six days starting Oct. 12 -- his first visit here since taking the post in the spring of 1998.

The proposed forum would consist of senior officials of Japanese and Chinese foreign, trade, agriculture and other government ministries and agencies, the sources said.

The proposed Japan-China forum would discuss specific measures that Japan could take to help China fully understand WTO rules and systems and make its economic systems compatible with international standards set out by the WTO, the sources said.

China has already expressed a strong desire to receive such technical assistance from Japan, the sources said.

Before the proposed dialogue forum is established, the government will invite some 10 officials of the Economic Development Center -- a think tank under the direct control of the Chinese government -- to Japan for training on WTO affairs in mid-October, the sources said.

The development center has been in the vanguard of the Chinese government's efforts to make the Chinese people understand the importance of entering the WTO for the sake of developing the economy in the long-term, the sources said.

State-owned Chinese enterprises -- nearly half of which are said to be operating in the red -- are particularly concerned about increased competition with foreign rivals once the country is admitted to the WTO.

The sources said that the proposed Japan-China forum will also discuss a possible joint strategy toward a new WTO-sponsored round of negotiations for liberalizing global trade.

The new WTO round was supposed to have been launched early this year, but it was not inaugurated due to the collapse of a key WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle last December. At that meeting, more than 130 member nations failed to set a specific agenda for the new round, due to sharp differences over labor protection, antidumping rules and agriculture.

China began to introduce free-market reforms at the end of the 1970s and filed for membership to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO's predecessor, in 1986.

China is expected to be admitted to the WTO following agreements with major trading partners -- including the United States, the EU and Japan -- on bilateral market-access issues.

In addition, China must reach an agreement in multilateral negotiations on adopting a protocol on the terms of its WTO entry. After a hiatus of nearly two months, the WTO's working party on China's membership is to resume deliberations on the protocol in the middle of September.

The U.S. Senate is also expected next month to give its long-awaited approval to a key China trade bill that, if enacted, would grant China permanent normal trade relations -- or PNTR -- with the U.S. as part of its bid to join the WTO. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on May 24, despite stiff opposition from labor unions and human rights advocates.

Once admitted to the WTO, China, which professes itself as a leader of the developing countries, is widely expected to have a strong voice in the new round of liberalization talks on global trade.

Japan set up dialogues on WTO affairs with the EU and South Korea immediately before the Seattle meeting of WTO ministers because it believes that the three trading partners could unite on the agricultural issue.

Like the EU and South Korea, China is also expected to object to a hasty liberalization of the farm sector in the new WTO round, as proposed by the U.S. and other major farm-exporting countries.