"The president (Joko Widodo) has made a decision to move the capital city out of Java", Minister of the National Planning and Development and Head of the National Development Planning Agency Bambang Brodjonegoro said after a cabinet meeting on the Follow-Up Plan for the Transfer of Capital at the Presidential Office here on Monday.
"(Widodo) decided on ... the option to relocate the capital", Brodjonegoro said after a cabinet meeting. The other alternatives were moving to a location near Jakarta or staying put and relocating all government buildings to a special zone around the presidential palace.
Prone to flooding and rapidly sinking because of uncontrolled ground water extraction, Jakarta is the archetypical Asian mega-city creaking under the weight of its dysfunction.
The first time this plan was mentioned was twice by Indonesia's first president Sukarno, first was when he inaugurated Palangka Raya as Central Kalimantan's capital in 1957 and re-emerged again in 1965 while mentioning the same region as its intended goal.
"In the future, would Jakarta be able to carry the double burden of being both the centre of government and its business centre?" he asked in the statement.
He said moving the capital from the coastal city of Jakarta, on the north coast of Java, could take up to 10 years, citing examples such as Brazil, Malaysia and Kazakhstan, according to Reuters.
The Braxton sisters' niece, Lauren, found dead at 24
The reality TV show clan has suffered yet another devastating loss and this time the person, Lauren Braxton , is tragically young. In late 2018, Trina Braxton's husband, Gabe Solis , from whom she was estranged, passed away after battling cancer.
The new capital's location has yet to be announced; the planning minister said his government is looking for a location on the eastern side of Indonesia.
Congestion is estimated to cost the economy $6.5bn a year.
However, Bambang said neither of the two options would address the issue of overpopulation in Jakarta, which is home to 57 per cent of the roughly 260 million people of the current capital.
Jakarta city is home to some 10 million people and is one of the fastest growing in the world - rocketing from just 4.5 million people in 1971 - but the wider Jakarta region is now home to nearly 30 million, up from just over 8 million in 1970.
The announcement comes after Mr Widodo vowed to spread economic development more evenly around the country.
Comments