KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24, 2006 (AFP) - Southeast Asia is on track to sign an agreement with China opening up its lucrative services sector by the end of the year, Malaysia's Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said Thursday. The deal would help Southeast Asian firms do business in China's services industries including banking, information technology, and tourism. "The issues are very technical. Once that can be cleared, we will be able to sign," Rafidah said after talks between ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and South Korea. "We are supposed to sign it at the ASEAN-China Summit, that is our deadline... December this year. I am confident," she told reporters. An ASEAN official earlier said that Southeast Asian countries were keen to penetrate China's services sector after sealing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) governing trade in goods in 2004. "Now we are trying to force them to open up the services sector," he said, on condition of anonymity. China's vice minister of commerce Yi Xiao Zhun Thursday vowed to accelerate the negotiations and attributed the slow progress to lack of familiarity with the area. "Now we are moving to other areas such as services. We are ready to accelerate the discussions," he said. "China is not very experienced on services ... and probably this is why the progress has been slow," he said. Another ASEAN official said that 12 service sectors were under discussion and that they include finance, telecommunications and tourism. "These are all billion dollar business industries. ASEAN wants a piece of the action," he said. jsm/sls/lh