Jakarta. Sovereign fund Danantara’s boss Rosan Roeslani said Tuesday that the agency was still in search of the best ways to settle the huge bullet train debt owed to China.

Rosan admitted that Danantara had never spoken with Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa on the possibility of using state money to pay off the loans.

Indonesia had taken out a Chinese loan to construct the $7.3 billion Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train, known as Whoosh. Operating this rail line is the KCIC, a joint venture of Indonesian and Chinese consortia. 

The blunt Purbaya recently said that the government would not spend a dime to get rid of the China train debt, while adding that Danantara’s annual dividends were already enough to take care of the problem. As Purbaya pushed Danantara to entirely shoulder the multi-billion-dollar debt, Rosan slammed the minister’s uncalled-for comment.

“I’m actually quite confused [by his statement]. We [Danantara] have actually not spoken with others [on the Whoosh debt], especially the Finance Ministry,” Purbaya told reporters on the margins of the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Jakarta.

According to Rosan, Danantara’s chief operating officer Dony Oskaria is still working on finding a solution to the financial burden. The fund only wished to disclose more details if they had already made the final decision. 

“In short, we are still evaluating the options. This is something that we need to discuss with many ministries. Things like this usually require us to sit together and look for the best alternative. That’s how we work: organized.”

Dony had recently revealed that Danantara was mulling having the government acquire parts of KCIC’s infrastructure or injecting equity into KCIC. But like Rosan, Dony said at the time that the fund had not come to a decision.

Purbaya said a few days ago that Danantara posted around Rp 80 trillion ($4.8 billion) in annual dividends, which he claimed to be enough to take care of the KCIC debt problem on its own. 

“If the government were to take on the debt, then the dividends should also be managed by the government,” Purbaya told the press.

Indonesia had used the loans from the government-owned China Development Bank to cover 75 percent of the train's total costs. The principal came with a 2 percent fixed interest rate per annum over the course of 40 years. However, pandemic-related movement restrictions and land acquisition trouble led to a $1.2 billion budget overrun, which came with a yearly interest rate of 3.4 percent. KCIC covered 25 percent of the rail line construction costs using its own funds.

Jakarta has entered talks with the Chinese government to restructure the debt.

The Indonesian side holds on to 60 percent of KCIC's stake via the PSBI consortium, while China’s Beijing Yawan HSR gets the remainder. 

PSBI has state-run railway operator Kereta Api Indonesia as its majority shareholder. PSBI, which has been in the red, includes construction firm Wijaya Karya (33.36 percent), tollway operator Jasa Marga (7.08 percent), and plantation company Perkebunan Nusantara I (1.03 percent).  

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