Indonesia to begin constructing its new capital on Borneo island in 2020
JAKARTA. KAZINFORM The government of Indonesia will begin constructing its new capital by the end of 2020 in the eastern part of the Borneo island to move away from an overpopulated Jakarta, which has congested roads and is prone to flooding, President Joko Widodo said on Monday.
The new capital will initially be home to 1.5 million inhabitants and the relocation will cost close to 466 trillion rupiah ($32.65 billion), EFE reports.
The relocation is expected to start in 2024, around the time when Widodo's current term ends.
The president, popularly known as Jokowi, announced that the capital will be relocated to an area between the regencies of Kutai Kartanegara and North Penajam Paser in the eastern part of Borneo island.
The president added that the location was chosen because there is «minimal risk» of natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes, which frequently strike other islands of the archipelago, and its proximity to the provincial capital, Balikpapan.
The proposed capital's location between the cities of Samarinda and Balikpapan, connected by a 90-kilometer (56 mile) long highway, and its connection to the provincial capital's port and airport, were also decisive in designating it over other locations, according to Jokowi.
In a televised speech, Widodo pointed out that the decision was made due to the influence Jakarta exerts on the country as a whole, being its financial, business, trade and administrative hub, as well as the problems of overpopulation and pollution afflicting it.
The president said that the burden on Java island was getting too heavy, with a population of 150 million (54 percent of Indonesia's population) and accounting for 58 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
National Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro pointed out that the process of designing the proposed city and its infrastructure will continue until the end of 2020, when construction will begin near the Bukit Soeharto national park in a sparsely populated area.
Brodjonegoro said that 19 percent of the cost of relocation will come from the federal budget and the rest from the sale of government assets and investment of private and national companies.
Nearly 30 million people live in the metropolitan area that makes up Jakarta and its satellite cities, one of the world's most polluted capitals and whose traffic jams have caused the state billions of dollars.
Moreover, floods pose a risk to the capital owing to subsidence or the sinking of land, caused mainly by the extraction of underground water and that especially affects northern Jakarta, where the average subsidence is between 15 and 20 centimeters per year
The idea of relocating the capital has been under consideration by the Indonesian government since the first president Sukarno who led Indonesia between 1945-1976.