According to Singapore Lianhe Zaobao, on October 8th, Indonesian Investment Minister Rosang issued a statement saying that as the debt of the Indonesian high-speed rail company operating Jakarta-Bandung Highspeed Railway is about to expire, in order to avoid debt default, he hopes to negotiate debt restructuring with China, which has aroused great concern from the outside world.

According to public information, the Yavan high-speed railway, built in 2023, cost a total of about $7.3 billion, but of which $45.5 billion was borrowed by Indonesia from China in 2017, with a loan period of 40 years at an annual interest rate of 2%.

More worrying is that the travel restrictions caused by the new coronavirus, as well as the impact of land collection problems, the amount of investment therefore increased further and eventually exceeded $1.2 billion, of which $5.6 billion, was also borrowed from Indonesia, although the interest rate has increased, reaching an annual interest rate of 3.4%.

That is to say, at present, Indonesia owes the total amount of our country, except for the repayed accounts, there is still a gap of about billions of dollars, now facing repayment pressure, need to restructure the debt, hope to repay at a lower interest rate.

However, although Indonesia has a good idea, judging from the actual situation, even if the debt is restructured, it is still a problem to repay it on schedule.

According to the financial reports of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway operator "Indonesian National Railway" in the past two years, the company lost approximately US$250 million in 2024 and US$96 million in the first half of 2025. Although revenue began to grow slowly, it will still be in a loss for some time, which will affect the ability to repay debt.

In fact, the main reason why Indonesia needs debt restructuring now is not that we have too much loans and too high interest rates, but more factors are itself.

For example, at present, the average daily passenger flow in Jakarta-Bandung Highspeed Railway can reach 24,000, which is lower than the original plan of 29,000 passengers per day, but the tickets and additional income brought by it are enough to repay according to the original loan plan.

However, despite the construction of the Yavan high-speed railway in China, the administrative efficiency of the central and local governments in Indonesia has not been influenced by the planned development of the corresponding supporting facilities, such as commercial complexes, transportation hubs, real estate industries and industrial parks, which is equivalent to borrowing other people's fish bars, but does not seriously go fishing, which obviously cannot play the biggest value of Yavan high-speed railway.

As an infrastructure with high investment and slow returns, railways will obviously effectively promote economic development and benefits by developing additional industries such as commerce, real estate, transportation, and industry along the railway.

For Indonesia, the road to wealth has been built now, but the rest depends on Indonesia's own efforts to develop. It doesn't want to create maximum value and improve efficiency. It only studies how to pay back money late or less. This is not the solution after all.