Jakarta (VNA) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is in talks to help finance up to 600 million USD for the expansion of Jakarta’s mass rapid transit (MRT) project.

The MRT now stretches from Lebak Bulus to the Hotel Indonesia Roundabout in central Jakarta. Work is underway to extend the tracks to Kota and later eventually West Ancol on what they call a “north-south” line. There are also further plans to develop the “east-west” line which connects West Java province’s Cikarang and Banten province’s Balaraja.

Jiro Tominaga, ADB’s Country Director for Indonesia, said that the bank had been having active discussions with the government on taking part in the east-west expansion. The funding will likely be a co-financing scheme together with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Speaking at a recent press briefing in Jakarta, Jiro said that ADB’s funding can be up to 300-600 million USD but gave no information about JICA’s funding.

Aside from loans, ADB also plans to provide technical assistance to develop the MRT project.

Jiro said there is some technical assistance that ADB will probably be able to provide Indonesia through grant financing. But a bulk of the financing will be loans.

In October, Weni Maulina, the construction director at MRT Jakarta, revealed that ADB could fund the East-West Line project. According to Weni, ADB would likely take part in the Tomang-Medan Satria route.

According to Indonesia’s Finance Ministry, as of February, JICA has funded 551 billion yen (about 3.9 billion USD) for projects in Indonesia, including approximately 227 billion yen for the MRT project./.