Japan may contribute 1.5 million Swiss francs -- about 117 million yen -- to a new trust fund established within the World Trade Organization to increase trade-related technical assistance for developing countries, government sources said Friday.

The funding plan for the Doha Development Agenda Global Trust Fund was proposed recently by the Foreign Ministry to the Finance Ministry amid preparations for a contribution-pledging conference in Geneva on March 11, the sources said.

The trust fund was established within the WTO -- the Geneva-based watchdog for international commerce -- under an agreement reached at a WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, in early November.

Its establishment forms part of efforts to encourage reluctant developing countries to participate in a new WTO-sponsored round of global trade liberalization talks.

As well as providing technical assistance to help developing countries boost their capacity to comply with WTO rules, the trust fund will be used to train trade experts in developing countries to help them prepare for the WTO-sponsored negotiations, the sources said.

"For a successful completion of the just-launched new WTO round, active participation of developing countries will be essential," one government source said. "To that end, the industrialized countries will have to beef up technical assistance for the capacity building of developing countries. Japan wants to shoulder a due financial burden for the trust fund."

The targeted size of the Doha fund is 15 million Swiss francs. Japan's possible contribution would account for exactly 10 percent of the total.

According to the sources, the United States has decided to chip in about 1.7 million Swiss francs, while the 15-nation European Union has also decided to contribute between 1.3 million Swiss francs and 1.4 million Swiss francs.

Individual EU member nations are also expected to provide separate financial assistance.

The new round of WTO talks, formally known as the Doha Development Agenda, was kicked off in Geneva at the end of January, less than three months after WTO ministers agreed in Doha on an agenda for the new round.

The Doha meeting came nearly two years after the previous WTO meeting in Seattle, which collapsed primarily because of sharp differences between industrialized countries and developing countries over several issues.

The developing members fear that any further liberalization of trade will benefit the industrialized camp alone at their expense.

A declaration issued by WTO ministers in Doha states that "technical cooperation and capacity building are core elements of the development dimension of the multilateral trading system. The delivery of WTO technical assistance shall be designed to assist developing and least-developed countries and low-income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules and disciplines, implement obligations and exercise the rights of membership, including drawing on the benefits of an open, rule-based multilateral trading system."

WTO Director General Mike Moore said at a meeting of the WTO Council in Geneva on Feb. 13 that, "Unless we move swiftly on capacity building in capitals and here in Geneva, we will not be able to do what is necessary to enable our more capacity-constrained members to participate in the substantive negotiations.

"The Doha Development Agenda saw some developing countries put conditionality on further progress. The condition of further progress on the development dimension of many new issues is capacity building."