China Shifts Japan in Strategic Project Indonesia's Rail Line

A new chapter is engraved in the history of Indonesian railways. Japan's unshakable dominance began to be displaced by a new power, namely China. This can be seen clearly from China's incessant funding and building strategic railway projects in Indonesia, such as the Jakarta-Bandung Fast Train continued to Jakarta-Surabaya, the Trans-Sulawesi Railway Line and the procurement of a new series of KRL.

The beginning began when the proposed Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Train project in 2014, Japan through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) submitted an offer for the investment value of high-speed trains reaching US $ 6.2 billion. Then, China appeared to offer a cheaper investment value of US $ 5.5 billion. At first Indonesia rejected both offers because they were considered too high. However, China included in their proposal that they did not ask for government guarantees or financing from the state budget, in contrast to Japan which asked for guarantees from the government. Then, PT. The Indonesia - China Fast Train (KCIC) as the project implementing company and also initiated Indonesia-China cooperation on the Indonesian rail line.