Indonesia to Buy Train Engines as Railway Expansion Gains Steam
By: | Feb 15 2016 at 06:01 PM | Intermodal | International Trade
Indonesia will purchase around 400 locomotive engines from either General Electric Co. or Electro-Motive Diesel Inc. as it expands its rail network, the transport minister said. The government’s progress toward a target of building 3,258 kilometers (2,025 miles) of new track by mid-2019 has been slow so far, but it remains achievable, said Ignasius Jonan, in an interview last week. In 2015, the government built 250 kilometers, and it is planning to quicken the pace with up to 700 kilometers more this year, he said. “As long as the budget is there, I will commit to the target,” said Jonan, who led the state rail company PT Kereta Api Indonesia for five years before becoming a minister in 2014. “We will speed up. Going from zero to one is the most difficult thing in infrastructure. From one to five is a lot easier,” he said. After years of under investment, President Joko Widodo has ordered increased spending on railways, roads and ports to drive growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The government can pay for around 30 percent of its estimated infrastructure bill of $400 billion, and wants private investors and multinational organizations including the China-led Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank to fund the rest, Widodo said in an interview on Feb. 11.