China, Indonesia assure quality of Jakarta-Bandung high speed railway project

President of China Railway Corporation Lu Dongfu visited Wednesday Tunnel No.1 construction of Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway project, assuring the quality of the high-technology train transport project jointly carried out by China and Indonesia state firm consortium.

During his visit in the location close to East Jakarta airport of Halim Perdanakusuma, Lu was accompanied by Minister of State-owned Enterprises of Indonesia Rini Soemarno.

"Both Indonesia and China governments would always assure the quality of construction works in the high speed railway project," the Indonesian minister told reporters after received explanation on the project's technical aspects with Lu at presence.

The 1.8 kilometers Tunnel No.1 in Halim area of East Jakarta was part of 13 tunnels with total length of over 16 kilometers to be built alongside the route.

Conveying Indonesia's full supports towards completion of the project, Rini added that Indonesia has now settled 64.2 percent of land compensations for locals alongside the route in nine regencies whose land properties were used in the project.

She said compensation on land in 22 unsettled locations in progress at present, would be totally done by May 27, paving the way for the project to progress at full swing.

Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway project has made breakthrough, said Lu.

"I believe that the project will show the most advanced high-speed railway in the world to Indonesian people." he added.

The Jakarta-Bandung high speed railway project takes 142.3 kilometers of route with four stations alongside the route.

With a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, the Chinese-technology high speed train was capable to serve a single trip between the two cities in about 36 minutes.

The speed of the train plying Jakarta-Bandung would be similar to the one serving Beijing-Shanghai, Lu said.

Due to complexity of the high-technology project, experienced Chinese engineers were deployed to carry out the project so as to assure the technical quality, safety and security of the whole process.

As the project heavily uses a brand new technology in the country, Indonesian workers were tasked to assist the Chinese experts as part of transfer-of-technology process mandated in the project agreement.

The high speed railway project was expected to spur the economy of regencies alongside the route, with a landmark theme park was planned to be built in Walini, a tourism spot near Bandung.

The project worth 5.9 billion U.S. dollars was initiated in March 2015.