BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (Kyodo) Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations aim to sign a free-trade deal in November after trade ministers from the two sides managed to overcome a major impediment that had bogged down their talks for months, Japanese and ASEAN ministers and officials said Friday.

The two sides reached an agreement in principle on the modalities of their free-trade talks, the sources said after they finished a meeting in the Brunei capital on the sidelines of an informal meeting of ASEAN economic ministers.

The problem of modalities in Japan-ASEAN FTA efforts refers to issues such as what percent of goods traded should be tariff-free. Japan has proposed 92 percent of goods traded between Japan and ASEAN to be tariff-free. But it wants 7 percent of goods categorized as sensitive or highly sensitive to have some degree of protection, and wants 1 percent of goods to be excluded completely from liberalization.