The first batch of steel rails made in China for use on Indonesia's Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway was shipped on Saturday from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Before being loaded onto a ship in Fangchenggang, a key port in Guangxi, the rails had been moved by train from their manufacturer, Panzhihua Iron and Steel, in Sichuan province.

Each measuring 100 meters long, the rails were loaded onto special trains bound for Fangchenggang port, where they were cut into 50-meter sections for the sea journey.

The Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway line will be 142.3 kilometers long, with 13 tunnels and a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour. The line will reduce travel time from Jakarta to Bandung from more than three hours to just 40 minutes.

Construction on the cooperative project by China and Indonesia started in 2018. The line is expected to begin operating next year.