The city administration will set up a company next month to operate a mass rapid transit (MRT) system, three months later than originally planned.

Governor Fauzi Bowo said Thursday the administration and the City Council would soon consider a draft ordinance on the establishment of the future company, PT MRT Jakarta, which would become a city enterprise.

"The administration will send a draft ordinance on the company (to the council) this afternoon. We'll have the company established by (the end of) April," he said at City Hall.

He did not explain why the creation of the company was three months behind schedule.

Fauzi said the draft ordinance would also set up shares in MRT Jakarta.

The shares, he said, would be controlled by the administration, through funds it would set aside from the 2008 city budget, and city market operator PD Pasar Jaya.

"Pasar Jaya will soon enter the property sector, too," he said.

The administration will seek to recruit for MRT Jakarta "internationally qualified" professionals "soon" after the company is established with assistance from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Fauzi said.

In efforts to overcome Jakarta's chronic traffic woes, the administration and the central government are jointly working on the Rp 8.3 trillion (US$905.62 million) project to develop the MRT system.

In the first phase of the MRT development, expected to start construction in 2010, railway lines will be built stretching 14.3 kilometers from Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Dukuh Atas in Central Jakarta.

The government announced last year the project would use soft loans from the Japanese bank at an interest rate of 0.4 percent per annum for 30 years until maturity plus a 10-year grace period.

The trains planned for use in the MRT project will travel at an average cruising speed of 26 kilometers per hour and will be able to carry 400,000 passengers a day. The trip from Lebak Bulus to Dukuh Atas will take 32 minutes.