Indonesia broke ground on its first high-speed railway line today, marking progress in the South-East Asian country's attempts to upgrade its creaky infrastructure.

President Joko Widodo said the US$5.5 billion project was part of the government’s efforts to make Indonesia more competitive globally.

“The efficient mobility of people and goods is one thing that will help us to win competition with other nations,” Joko said at the ground-breaking ceremony in Bandung, the capital of West Java.

A consortium of four Indonesian state-owned companies and China Railway International Co Ltd is building line linking Jakarta and Bandung, about 150 kilometres away.

The train, the first such project in Indonesia, is expected to travel at 250 kilometres per hour when it is completed in early 2019, officials said.

The Indonesian government invited China and Japan to bid for the project, but scrapped an initial plan to fund it using the state budget.

The president later decided that any project would not involve a government loan guarantee. The project was given to China after it agreed to the terms.

Experts say Indonesia’s poor infrastructure has been a major impediment to strong growth, but the state budget can only cover 30 percent of the estimated US$450 billion needed to build roads, railways, ports and power plants by 2020.

The Indonesian economy grew 4.7 percent in the third quarter of 2015.

- dpa