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BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Nov 2 (AFP) - China's Premier Zhu Rongji and the leaders of Southeast Asia's 10 nations are expected to agree on an ambitious plan to create the world's largest free trade zone, officials said Friday.

The decision to give the go-ahead for the ASEAN-China free trade area (FTA) at a summit meeting here in Brunei next week "is going to be extremely significant," a Southeast Asian foreign ministry official told AFP.

"If this is realised, maybe in about 10 years, it will be the largest FTA in the world with a combined market of nearly two billion people," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will hold their annual meeting in Brunei's capital on Monday before meeting their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea the next day.

Most of ASEAN, comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, will already be part of a free market by 2003 under the grouping's own trade liberalisation plan.

At the last ASEAN-China summit meeting held in Singapore in 2000, Premier Zhu raised the likelihood of a China-ASEAN free trade zone as a means to strengthen trade and investment links.

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