The government has stepped up involvement in the Chinese-backed high-speed railway that is to connect two major Indonesian cities, as it pledged on Thursday to issue the remaining construction permit for the multi-billion-dollar project by next week despite various unresolved issues.

On Thursday, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno paid a rare visit to the Transportation Ministry’s headquarters with executives of the joint Indonesian-Chinese firm Kereta Cepat Indonesia China (KCIC), which runs the project, to meet newly appointed Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi.

After her meeting with Budi, who served as state-owned airport operator Angkasa Pura II president director prior to his appointment to Cabinet last week, Rini, Budi’s former boss, said there were “no more problems” with the official permits for the construction of the railway tracks.

The nod is deemed crucial as KCIC has been struggling with the funding for the railway as the China Development Bank has withheld its loan for the project, which will connect Jakarta and the West Java provincial capital of Bandung.

The bank, which will provide 75 percent of funding for the project, requires KCIC to secure the construction permit for the whole track for the loan agreement. KCIC had only secured the permit to develop five kilometers of track in Walini, Bandung.

“The [loan agreement] signing will be done next week. It is closely related to the construction permit and we have talked about it. [There are] no more problems with that, so I expect that it [the construction permit] will be issued next week,” she said.

The cost for the 142.3-kilometer high-speed rail network previously amounted to US$5.1 billion. However, many issues had delayed the project, including financial hurdles, land procurement and a change in design that also affected the total investment.

Construction, which experienced a prolonged delay after the issuance of the first construction permit in March, would possibly begin next week, Rini added.

Rini’s remark echoed an earlier statement by newly appointed Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, who suggested that all documents and permits related to the project would be completed by next week.

The high-speed railway has been dubbed by many as the flagship project. It will stop at four stations between Jakarta and Bandung, namely Halim, Karawang, Walini and Tegalluar.

The government will give KCIC a fixed concession period of 50 years starting on May 31, 2019, by which time construction must be complete.

KCIC president director Hanggoro Budi Wiryawan said that the company, as of July, had procured 60 percent of the total land needed for the project, allowing it to only build 84 km of railway.

Rini admitted that KCIC still needed to resolve some issues to fulfill the requirement from the Transportation Ministry, including land procurement, but she said that the company had followed the process “according to the law”.

“Like toll roads, we don’t have to procure 100 percent of the land [from the start],” she said.

The Transportation Ministry previously maintained that KCIC had to procure all of the approximately 600 hectares of land needed for the project to secure the construction permit.

The ministry’s director general for railways, Prasetyo Boeditjahjono, also admitted that the permit would be issued “with some requirements”, along with the revised design and investment plan for the first 5 km of the project.

Separately, Hanggoro claimed that the company had completed the DED document and had submitted it with the ministry. “We have presented them the program and the target of the land procurement.”

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