Southeast Asian leaders are eager to sign a sweeping trade pact by the end of this year, Thailand's prime minister said on Friday, with further talks expected at a Bangkok summit on the world's biggest commercial deal.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) includes all 10 economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) who are meeting at the weekend in the Thai capital.

But it also sweeps in India, as well as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, covering half the world's population and around 40 percent of its trade.

Squabbles with India over access to its giant consumer market - as well as Australia and New Zealand over the lack of "high quality" labor and environmental standards - have undercut talks in recent months.

 But ASEAN, hosted this year by Thailand, is determined to push the pact through as tit-for-tat tariffs between the US and China darken the outlook for global free trade. 

"Thailand is trying to expedite the conclusion of the RCEP negotiations this year," Prayut Chan-O-Cha, Thailand's former junta leader who is now premier, told a business forum in Bangkok on Friday. 

"This is the agreed intention of all leaders."

Seven of the 18 chapters within the deal have been concluded, according to the Philippines' Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez. 

"We have reached a point to really demand from different negotiating parties to be more realistic, pragmatic," he said, adding the US-China spat should prompt ASEAN to fast-track the RCEP deal.