Jakarta is home to some 30 million people and is also one of the world's fastest sinking cities due to excessive groundwater extraction (AFP Photo/ADEK BERRY) |
Jakarta (AFP) - Indonesia is considering a plan to move its capital away from sprawling megalopolis Jakarta, officials said Monday, but any jump to a new city could still be years away.
The idea of
moving Indonesia's seat of government from an urban conglomeration of nearly 30
million people with some of the world's worst traffic jams has stretched on for
decades.
Low-lying
Jakarta is also prone to annual flooding and is one of the world's fastest
sinking cities due to excessive groundwater extraction.
On Monday,
urban planning minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said the long-stalled relocation
plan won approval from President Joko Widodo who favoured moving the capital
away from Indonesia's most populous Java island.
Jakarta,
which suffers billions of dollars in annual congestion-and-flood linked
economic losses, would remain the country's financial hub.
"(Widodo)
decided on ... the option to relocate the capital," Brodjonegoro said
after a cabinet meeting.
In a statement
before the meeting, Widodo expressed support for the idea, but he did not give
an alternate location or a timeline for any move.
"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.
"If we
prepare well from the very beginning, this great (relocation) idea could be
realised," he added.
During his
re-election campaign, Widodo pledged to spread economic growth more evenly in
the nation of 260 million.
He won a
second term this month, according to unofficial poll results.
Local media
have reported that a possible new capital would be Palangkaraya city on the
island of Borneo.
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