JAKARTA - Japan and the UK have expressed interest in participating in the Jakarta MRT urban mass transportation development project.
The interest of the two countries was stated in the signing of a memorandum of understanding or MoU between Indonesia and Japan and the UK.
The signing was carried out in Bali, today and was attended by the Indonesian Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi.
Also present were the Deputy Minister for Japan's Foreign Cooperation Satoru Mizushima, British Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor Leste Owen Jenkins, and the Acting Governor of DKI Jakarta Heru Budi Hartono.
The memorandum of understanding signed is the first, the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) between the Government of Indonesia and the Government of Japan regarding the continuation of the MRT Jakarta East-West Line Phase 1 development.
Then the second, Letter of Intent (LoI) between the Government of Indonesia and the British Government regarding cooperation in the Jakarta MRT Development.
Minister of Transportation (Menhub) Budi Karya Sumadi said, currently many countries want to invest in building transportation infrastructure in Indonesia, especially MRT.
"Japan and England are two strategic partners of Indonesia who have carried out a lot of mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, including the transportation sector," Budi said in an official statement, Monday, November 14.
With this memorandum of understanding, Budi hopes to be the first step in accelerating the development of MRT in Jakarta, which can be a solution to reduce congestion and also as an environmentally friendly mode of public transportation, so as to reduce pollution and improve the quality of clean air.
Budi said the momentum of the Indonesian Presidency in this year's G20 Summit was used to find opportunities for cooperation in transportation infrastructure development with many countries, through non-APBN creative funding.
This is done so that transportation infrastructure development can continue to be carried out in order to improve the connectivity and competitiveness of the country, amidst the limitations of the state budget.
"As mandated by the President, the development of urban mass transportation such as the Jakarta MRT is very important to continue. Currently DKI Jakarta is considered a fairly representative city for the pilot development of urban mass transportation. Other places that are currently being studied are related to MRT and LRT, namely Medan, Bandung, Surabaya, and Bali," said the Minister of Transportation. and the Government of DKI Jakarta to develop the next MRT phases, including through the Expression of Interest of the UK Export Finance to prepare funding of 1.25 billion US dollars. We are ready to collaborate with all partners to bring this cooperation to the next stage," said Owen.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister for Foreign Cooperation Japan Satoru Mizushima said Japan had participated in the construction of the MRT Jakarta South-North corridor (Lebak Bulus-HI) which was inaugurated by President Jokowi in March 2019.
Satoru Mizushima believes that with the experience of cooperation between the two countries in building the MRT, it will help in facilitating the next MRT development, namely the East-West corridor.
"I hope that the continuation of this collaboration will further increase the cooperation between the two countries in the future in the railway sector," he said.
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