Intensive work to build the No 1 tunnel of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway station Halim is underway round-the-clock to assemble a huge tunnel boring machine on March 20, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]

The 142-km Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, connecting the Indonesian capital Jakarta with Bandung, is now under construction, after China and Indonesia signed an agreement in October 2015 to establish a joint venture to build and operate it.

As a part of the Belt and Road Initiative projects in Indonesia, the high-speed railway is the first to use China's high-speed railway standards, technologies and equipment on a foreign line.

It is being constructed and operated by a China-Indonesia consortium of firms led by China Railway Corp and Indonesian state-owned PT Wijaya Karya Tbk, and is to be funded mainly by loans from China Development Bank.

The high-speed rail, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, will have a maximum design speed of 350 km/h and is capable of transport passengers and goods within 45 minutes between Jakarta and Bandung.