Economic ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and several major partners are meeting through the weekend in Jakarta, seeking ways to speed up efforts to liberalise trade and attract new investment.

Asean leaders agreed last year to transform the region of nearly 500 million people into a giant EU-style free trade zone by 2020 and vowed in January to cut tariff and non-tariff barriers in 11 key sectors by 2008, but many countries, including Indonesia, have been criticised for moving too slowly.

"If Asean wishes to be able to compete and play an important role in the global economy, its members would have no other choice but to be truly faithful to their agreed commitments," Indonesia's leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri, said in a speech at the meeting's opening ceremony.

Asean Secretary General Ong Keng Yong said two key issues would top the agenda of the group's ministers, who will meet with counterparts and top officials from China, India, Japan, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand.

"Number one is how to continue the progress we have made for the 11 priority sectors," he said.

"Two, how do we quickly advance the FTA talks which we have with China, India and Japan and how to launch new talks with the Republic of Korea and Australia and New Zealand?"

Asean expects free trade agreements (FTAs) to be completed with China in 2010, India in 2011 and Japan a year later.

Ong said Asean ministers in Jakarta were likely to recommend the formal launch of free trade talks with South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to their heads of government, who could then formalise the decision at a meeting in Laos in late November.

The urgency for an Asean trading bloc has been accentuated by the failure of world trade talks last year in Cancun, Mexico, and a dramatic loss of capital inflows since Asia's 1997/98 financial crisis.