JAKARTA - Indonesia's state railway company KAI has secured loans totalling nearly $450 million from the China Development Bank (CDB) to fund the increasing cost of constructing the country's first high-speed railway, the firm said.

Indonesia launched the 142-kilometre (88.23-mile) railway line connecting the capital Jakarta to Bandung city in October, even as the project was running $1.2 billion over budget due to elevated land procurement costs and pandemic-related delays.

KAI, the leader of the consortium of Indonesian and Chinese companies building and operating the bullet train line named Whoosh, said in a stock exchange filing that it signed two loan facilities with CDB on Feb. 7.

The first loan amounted to $231 million, while the second loan was denominated in Chinese yuan, equivalent to $217.1 million, KAI said.

Indonesia had initially sought loans of $560 million before the railway's launch, but negotiations on interest rates and government guarantees prolonged the process.

KAI's statement did not elaborate on the details of the new loans.

The loans were in addition to the $4.55 billion CDB approved in 2017 for the project. The original loan has a 40-year tenure, with 10-year grace period, and carries an interest rate of 2% per annum.

The total cost to build the railway increased to $7.3 billion due to the cost overrun, according to Indonesian authorities.

Indonesia has said that it is considering extending the railway by more than 700 kilometres to its second-largest city of Surabaya in East Java. (Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman; Editing by Gayatri Suroyo and Dhanya Ann Thoppil)