Javanese graduate: 'I'll continue to work for Chinese firms in future'

Galang Alif Swandaru, a graduate of Diponegoro University in Indonesia, never expected his life and livelihood would be linked to a Chinese enterprise and his country's first high-speed railway.

In 2018, Swandaru and his classmates in the university's civil engineering department were invited by PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia-China, a consortium involving Indonesia's state-owned companies and China's centrally administered State-owned enterprises, to visit a construction site for the Jakarta-Bandung HSR. After seeing the work and listening to some speeches, his interest in the project was piqued.

A few years earlier, after the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed in late 2013, Indonesian President Joko Widodo had put forward the country's Global Maritime Fulcrum. The synergy between the BRI and GMF made the idea of building the Jakarta-Bandung HSR, Indonesia's and Southeast Asia's first HSR project, a reality. The $8-billion, 142.3-kilometer line represents the first overseas foray of Chinese HSR technologies. Its foundation was laid on Jan 21, 2016, with full construction starting in June 2018.