Indonesia plans to relocate its capital from Jakarta

By Bianca Britton

04/30/2019

Indonesia plans to move its capital city from Jakarta, according to the country’s planning minister.

Indonesia’s Minister of National Development and Planning Board Chief, Bambang Brodjonegoro, said President Joko Widodo favored a plan to relocate the capital from Jakarta to outside of Java Island, according to CNN Indonesia, but that the government has not yet formally decided an exact location.

According to Reuters, Brodjonegoro said on Monday that the administration was considering the eastern side of the archipelago as the destination for the new capital. However, such a move could take up to 10 years, he said,

Jakarta is home to more than 10 million people, with an estimated 30 million in the greater metropolitan area.

It’s also one of the fastest sinking cities in the world, according to the not-for-profit organization WEF. The nation is prone to flooding and is sinking at an alarming rate due to over-extraction of groundwater.

Brodjonegoro estimated that government would need the equivalent of 23-33 billion US dollars to move the capital, build new infrastructure and relocate civil servants from Jakarta, CNN Indonesia reported.