Jakarta. Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund, Danantara, has pledged to help resolve mounting problems at the country’s first high-speed rail line, the Jakarta–Bandung service known as Whoosh, which has become an emblem of both ambition and excess.

Dony Oskaria, Danantara’s chief operating officer, said on Friday the fund had made the project one of its immediate priorities. “Of course, we will sort this process out,” he told reporters at a public event in Jakarta.

Discussions are already underway with Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the state railway operator and the largest shareholder in Kereta Cepat Indonesia–China (KCIC), the joint venture running the project.

KAI’s new president director, Bobby Rasyidin, has described the high-speed rail as a potential “time bomb” because of the financial strain it has imposed on his company. KAI, through a state-owned consortium, holds a majority stake in KCIC and therefore bears the brunt of its losses. In the first half of 2025, KAI booked Rp1.24 trillion ($75 million) in losses linked to the line, an improvement from Rp1.81 trillion in the same period last year, but still a heavy burden.

The Whoosh line has transformed travel between Jakarta and Bandung. The 142-kilometre journey now takes just 45 minutes, compared with up to three hours by car. Between January and June this year, the service carried 2.9 million passengers, up 10 percent from a year earlier. 

The train was praised during Prabowo’s bilateral talks with Xi Jinping in Beijing last November. However, the project has become a debt headache.

The project’s $7.3 billion price tag was financed 75 percent through loans from the China Development Bank. The initial borrowing carried a relatively low 2 percent annual interest rate. But after pandemic disruptions and land acquisition disputes triggered a $1.2 billion cost overrun, Indonesia had to accept additional financing at 3.4 percent. 

KCIC is structured as a joint venture between Indonesian and Chinese state-owned enterprises. Indonesia’s Pilar Sinergi BUMN Indonesia (PSBI) controls 60 percent, split among KAI (58.5 percent), construction firm Wijaya Karya (33.4 percent), toll-road operator Jasa Marga (7.1 percent), and plantation group Perkebunan Nusantara VIII (1 percent). The remaining 40 percent belongs to Beijing Yawan HSR, a Chinese consortium led by China Railway International. Shareholders were responsible for covering 25 percent of construction costs, while the rest came from Chinese lending.

Losses across PSBI amounted to Rp 4.2 trillion in 2024, with KAI absorbing over half. Bobby told lawmakers this week that a detailed review of KCIC’s finances was underway, with Danantara expected to take a central role in any debt restructuring.

The Whoosh service, inaugurated in October 2023 as Southeast Asia’s first bullet train, was intended as a showcase of Indonesia’s infrastructure leap and a symbol of deepening ties with Beijing. President Joko Widodo trumpeted it as a national milestone, and his successor, Prabowo Subianto, is eager to extend the line eastward to Surabaya. Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, the coordinating minister for infrastructure, confirmed last week that the legal groundwork for expansion was already in motion.