W

itnessed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Jakarta-based PT Jakarta Monorail (JM) and China Communications Construction Company Ltd. (CCCC) on Thursday signed an agreement on the provision turnkey solution to fund, design and build the monorail project.

CCCC agreed to invest US$1.5 billion to fund the monorail project and to fund the construction of a monorail assembling plant in Indonesia.

In the joint venture, CCCC will be involved in designing and building the monorail project as well as developing an integrated transit system. Furthermore, JM and CCCC will build a plant for the maintenance and assembly of monorail cars, which will be imported from China.

'€œWe believe that we have made the right decision to invest in our partner, PT Jakarta Monorail, and we hope to share our experience in engineering and constructing large infrastructure projects,'€ CCCC International executive president Mo Wenhe said during the press conference.

According to the agreement, JM reserves the right to invite state-owned train maker PT Inka as a strategic partner to assemble and potentially manufacture the monorail trains.

JM president director Sukmawati Syukur said that only 50 trains would be directly imported from China.

'€œThe remaining trains will be assembled in Indonesia,'€ she said, adding that the assembly plant would provide work for thousands of locals. '€œWe don'€™t know where the plant will be located yet but it won'€™t be in Jakarta because land prices here are high.'€

Sukmawati said initial construction would commence on Oct. 16 in Setiabudi, South Jakarta.

In June, Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo announced his decision to revive the Rp 8.1 trillion ($710 million) megaproject, which had been stalled since 2008 due to financial problems.

The consortium is proposing to build two lines: a green line, with 16 stations, extending 14.27 kilometers from the City Police headquarters (Komdak) to Satria Mandala Museum, both in South Jakarta; and a blue line stretching 9.72 km from Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta to Roxy in West Jakarta, with 11 stations.

JM plans to operate 10 trains comprising six cars each on the two lines by 2016, with each train capable of carrying 1,220 passengers.

Each monorail coach will fit 200 passengers with each train consisting of six coaches. At least 25 trains will be deployed each day.

The monorail is expected to transport between 300,000 and 800,000 passengers per day with tickets costing around Rp 10,000 per trip.

The city administration also encouraged a consortium of state-owned enterprises to start their project building other monorail lines to connect the capital and areas on the outskirts of Jakarta.