JAKARTA, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- As the first highspeed railway in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR) is an example of win-win cooperation between countries, promoting Indonesia's development and livelihood, said Chinese Ambassador to Indonesia Lu Kang.
As a flagship project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR) is the first overseas construction project of China Railway that fully adopts the Chinese technology and industry chain, Lu told Xinhua in a recent written interview.
Under the lead of the governments of both countries, it is built and managed by Chinese and Indonesian enterprises, which adheres to the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, said Lu.
Over the past eight years, the governments, enterprises and railway builders from both countries have made great efforts to the construction, carrying out all-round cooperation in survey and design, construction, equipment manufacturing, operation and management, personnel training, and technology sharing, he said.
"The completion of the railway will bring tangible benefits to the Indonesian people and, most directly, in creating more convenient travel conditions," said the ambassador.
The 142-km-long Jakarta-Bandung HSR, with a maximum design speed of 350 km per hour, connects Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta and West Java Province's capital Bandung.
It will cut the journey between the two cities from over three hours to around 40 minutes, relieving the commuting traffic congestion, said Lu.
In addition, in the long run, the HSR will further optimize the local investment environment, increase employment opportunities, as well as effectively promote business and tourism development along the railway, he added.
"It will even help form new growth points, thus accelerating the formation of a high-speed railway economic corridor," he added.
The ambassador noted that China and Indonesia have worked together to build a number of high-quality infrastructure projects since the BRI was proposed in 2013, covering such fields as power stations, roads and bridges, dams, and communications, which have enhanced Indonesia's interconnectivity among islands and improved local people's life.
Taking the Jakarta-Bandung HSR as an example, Lu said that more than 75 percent of the project's services and procurement are local to Indonesia, which has had a significant impact on the local supply chain and labor force employment, especially in training thousands of qualified technicians for Indonesia, who have improved their lives and upgraded their work skills through employment.
Lu emphasized that by synergizing the BRI with Indonesia's vision of the Global Maritime Fulcrum, the economic and trade cooperation between China and Indonesia has achieved fruitful results.
China has been Indonesia's largest trading partner for 10 consecutive years. In 2022, the bilateral trade volume reached 149.4 billion U.S. dollars, according to Lu.
The two sides will continue to promote the construction of key projects such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Corridor and "Two Countries, Two Parks" to create new benchmarks for high-quality BRI cooperation, he said.
Meanwhile, both sides will continue to improve the level of economic, trade and investment cooperation and expand cooperation in multiple fields, Lu said.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Indonesia.
Under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, the comprehensive strategic partnership has continued to deepen and consolidate over the past 10 years, said Lu.
The two sides will advance strategic cooperation to a higher level and turn the vision of building a China-Indonesia community with a shared future into reality, injecting more certainty and positivity into the region and the world, he said. ■