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usiness and economic deals and commitments have been made between Southeast Asian nations and their partner countries during the 2011 ASEAN and East Asia Summit, which included the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India and Australia.

ASEAN and China have pledged to further liberalize trade in services, signing a new protocol to expand sectoral coverage of their commitments beyond the existing general agreement on trade in services (GATS) and the first package of ASEAN China Trade in Services agreement (AC-TIS), according to an official press statement issued by ASEAN officials.

ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said the enlarged free trade pact, which previously only included trade of goods and investment, would further boost trade and investment between ASEAN and China.

Earlier on Friday, Chinese banks, led by state-run China Development Bank (CDB), signed a US$1.3 billion agreement to disburse loans for the $2 billion Sumatra coal railway to be executed by Indonesia’s Bukit Asam Transpacific Railways.

“China will actively participate in regional cooperation with solidarity, cooperation and development in the region. How to maintain the positive momentum has been a common aspiration of East Asian leaders,” China’s assistant foreign minister Liu Zhenmin said.

With the United States, which joined the East Asia Summit together with Russia this year, Indonesia, ASEAN’s chair for 2011 and Southeast Asia’s largest economy, also signed intergovernment and business-to-business deals surpassing $22 billion during the summit.

Indonesia’s largest private airline Lion Air has made the largest ever purchase of the 230 aircrafts from the US’ manufacturer Boeing in a deal worth $21.7 billion, which US President Barack Obama considered a milestone for the nation’s stalling economic recovery.

“What we see here, a multibillion-dollar deal between Lion Air, one of the fastest-growing airlines, not only in the region, but in the world, and Boeing, is going to result in over 100,000 jobs back in the United States of America over a long period of time,” Obama said in his remarks.

On the government-front, the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has granted Indonesia $600 million for poverty reduction projects to sustain the country’s economic growth through plans in reducing energy costs, increasing productivity and improving public expenditure.

Outside of the ASEAN-Japan summit, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yukio Edano has also met with Indonesian Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa to follow-up on Japan’s estimated ¥4 trillion investment commitment to ease infrastructure bottlenecks in the nation’s capital Jakarta in the Metropolitan Priority Area (MPA) master plan.

Adding to that, Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said Japanese multinational electronics giant Sharp is also eyeing a $1 billion investment to build solar energy in Indonesia, which could “provide electricity and reduce costs for people in remote areas”.

South Korea, Australia and India also seek to enhance economic activities in ASEAN, with the free trade agreements (FTA) and comprehensive economic partnerships they have already agreed to with the region.

The ASEAN Economic Community Council has mulled a plan to consolidate all of the region’s FTAs with its six dialog partners (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand), which would make a free market of half of the world’s population with combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $20 trillion, Indonesian Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said.

— Esther Samboh