Staff writer

The United Nations will hold a two-day conference in Tokyo early next month to hear the opinions of government officials and private-sector experts from Asian countries about the U.N.'s specific agenda for the 21st century, government sources said Thursday.

The sources said the conference will be held at the U.N. University on Sept. 9-10 under the sponsorship of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

State Foreign Secretary Nobutaka Machimura will serve as the conference chairman, and some 150 government officials, academics, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations will participate, the sources said. Among the Japanese participants will be Hisashi Owada, a former top envoy at the U.N. in New York.

The forthcoming hearing from Asian experts is part of the process of U.N. preparations for a "Millennium Summit" of top leaders from more than 180 U.N. member countries scheduled for the fall of 2000 in New York, the sources said.

The U.N. will conduct similar regional hearings -- in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America -- and their findings will be reported by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to the U.N. General Assembly around next March, the sources said.

Through the regional hearings, the U.N. will seek to identify specific goals it should pursue in the 21st century on a wide range of issues, including peace and security, economic and social problems, development cooperation, humanitarian issues and human rights protection, the sources said.

The sources said that at the forthcoming Asian hearing in Tokyo, four panels will be set up to deal with the topics of: peace and security, economic and social development, human rights and good governance, and the strengthening of the U.N. functions.