Indonesia's medium-speed train project may require 2.1 bln USD: official

The planned medium-speed train linking Jakarta to Bandung, the capital of West Java province, may require funds of 30 trillion rupiah (about 2.1 billion U.S. dollars), a senior official at Indonesia's Transportation Ministry said here on Tuesday.

The estimation was far lower than around 70 trillion rupiah ( about 4.9 billion U.S. dollar) for a high-speed train project linking the two cities proposed earlier, the ministry's director general for railways Hermanto Dwiatmoko said.

According to Hermanto, the medium-speed train planned would have a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour, making the train trip shortened to 1 hour from the existing 3 hours.

Hermanto said that similar medium-speed train transport is now being developed by the ministry in Sulawesi. "The one we build in Parepare would also have maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour. Later on in the operation, the speed would be set at 150 kilometers per hour," Hermanto told reporters in his office here.

After abandoning a high-speed railway project connecting Jakarta and Bandung last week, the government is planning to build a medium-speed train project serving the two cities.

The project would be jointly carried out by state-run firms and its foreign partners on business-to-business (B to B) scheme without using the state budget. Endi