The project starts to rolling again

Local bank set to finance monorail project

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta — Jakarta's monorail project may finally get rolling again soon, with a local bank consortium finalizing its commitment to finance up to 70 percent of the US$480 million needed for the project.
The remaining 30 percent will come from a consortium of private, state and city-owned firms, Jakarta secretary Ritola Tasmaya said after a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla on Thursday.

"The consortium will agree on a financing deal after a final financial assessment of the project has been made," Ritola said, adding that the consortium would be led by state-owned lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI).
Besides BRI, Thursday's meeting was also attended by representatives from state lender Bank Mandiri, city-owned Bank DKI, the State Ministry for State Enterprises, and project developer Jakarta Monorail (JM).

The final financial assessment will include the mass rapid transportation project's total financing needs, Ritola further said, as well as detailed estimates of its passenger figures and tariff schemes.
"The Vice President has asked that the assessment be concluded within two weeks time," Ritola said.

The monorail project has been stalled by financing problems, despite the government having written a letter of guarantee for the project on the request of JM and potential financiers. The guarantee letter from the Finance Ministry will provide loss coverage for JM if the project fails to meet the minimum 160,000 passengers required, but in return requires the project to be completed by 2010.

Initial financiers for the project included a Middle East consortium led by the Dubai Islamic Bank, which had earlier agreed to secure a $500 million loan, but left after finding out the Islamic financing scheme it offered did not match Indonesian regulations.

The project, which will comprise two separate monorail lines, is part of the city's planned integrated transportation system, which is aimed at overcoming its perennial traffic chaos.
The monorail's green line will run through South Jakarta's Kuningan business district, along Jl. Sudirman to Tanah Abang in Central Jakarta. The blue line will link Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta with Roxy in West Jakarta.