Indonesia plans to move its capital to Borneo from Jakarta, a crowded, polluted city on the north coast of Java that is slowly sinking, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said yesterday.
It is urgent to begin relocation plans, although a physical relocaton of the capital would not begin until 2024, Widodo said.
The new administrative headquarters are to be built in East Kalimantan, Widodo said, adding that the relocation, about 1,400km from Jakarta, would help spread economic activity beyond Java, Indonesia’s most populous island.
Photo: AFP
“It is a strategic location at the center of Indonesia, close to growing urban area,” Widodo told a news conference at the Jakarta state palace.
Widodo said that moving the capital would cost 466 trillion rupiah (US$32.97 billion), of which the state would fund 19 percent, with the rest from public-private partnerships and private investment.
The price tag includes new government offices and homes for about 1.5 million civil servants.
East Kalimantan is located on the Indonesian side of Borneo, a region known for rainforests, coal mines and home to just more than 16 million people.
Environmentalist groups have expressed fears that building a new capital amid swaths of forests could imperil the habitats of endangered wildlife, including orangutans, sun bears and long-nosed monkeys.
Widodo said that the burden on Jakarta and Java is too heavy, with Java home to 54 percent of the country’s 260 million population and generating 58 percent of the country’s GDP.
With twice the density of Singapore, the city has little space to build more without rehousing thousands of families. To make matters worse, two-fifths of the city is below sea level and parts of it are sinking at 20cm, due to millions of residents using up groundwater.
Gridlocks and public transport woes cost the city about 100 trillion rupiah a year in economic losses, according to official estimates.
Construction of the new city would begin from 2021, Indonesian Minister of National Development Planning Bambang Brodjonegoro said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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