* Single market home to 500 million people
* Act details to be published on Oct. 6
STRASBOURG, France, Sept 7 (Reuters) - The EU will unveil plans next month to strengthen its single market, aiming to create jobs and boost cross-border trade and investment, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday.
The single market is based on the principle of the free movement of people, goods and services across the EU's 27 countries which are home to 500 million. But Barroso said the benefits were not always being sufficiently realised.
"The internal market is Europe's greatest asset and we are not using it enough. We need to deepen it urgently," Barroso told the European Parliament.
"Next month we will set out how to deepen the single market in a comprehensive and ambitious Single Market Act," he said.
The details of the act will be published on Oct. 6, said Chantal Hughes, a spokeswoman for Michel Barnier, the commissioner for the internal market and financial services.
The act will consist of 30 proposals designed to resolve around 150 barriers and bottlenecks within the European Union identified by Mario Monti, the former internal market commissioner, in a report produced for Barroso, she said.
Monti proposed a "package deal" which would see all member states making concessions in return for gains in other areas. He also called for better-coordinated tax policies.
Monti cited the difficult environment for small- and medium-sized enterprises in the single market, with only 8 percent of such firms doing cross-border trade and only 5 percent having set up foreign subsidiaries. He also cited their demands for simpler and less burdensome regulation and concerns.
The act is likely to focus on improved regulation, tax-coordination initiatives, a deepening of the internal market in services, and measures to improve standardisation, public procurement and energy infrastructure, Hughes said.
It will also focus on making it easier for small- and medium-sized enterprises to get access to capital, and on measures to fight counterfeiting and piracy. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by David Stamp)