Jakarta-Bandung Railway Project Won’t Meet Target: Minister

Jakarta-Bandung Railway Project Won’t Meet Target . State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno has said the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project will fail to meet its completion target in 2019 due to problems in land acquisition.

She said in Jakarta on Monday as of now, the land acquisition only reached 54 percent of the 140-kilometer total length of the project, or 55 km.

She added the constructor had prepared the construction on 22 km of acquired land and conducted land clearance on the remaining 33 km.

“The project location was only decided on Oct. 31, 2017. There are still many plots of land, [whose conversion from forest land] should be agreed on by the Environment and Forestry Ministry,” Rini said at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister as reported by kontan.co.id.

She said the construction would start this month and was expected to be completed in October 2020.

“The construction period was set for 32 months. Currently, we are in the process of land clearance in Halim [in East Jakarta],” Rini said,

adding that the loan from China Development Bank was expected to be disbursed this year.

She said the initial disbursement was about US$500 million of a $5.9 billion total loan. The project was carried out by PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia Cina (KCIC), a consortium of state-owned enterprises and China Railways through a business-to-business plan. Jakarta-Bandung Railway Project Won’t Meet Target (bbn, The Jakarta Post)