President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has announced that two regencies in East Kalimantan are to be the site of the country's new capital city.

"The government has conducted in-depth studies in the past three years and as a result of those studies the new capital will be built in part of North Penajam Paser regency and part of Kutai Kertanegara regency in East Kalimantan," the President said at a press conference at the State Palace in Central Jakarta on Monday.

He also said that he had sent a letter to the House of Representatives about the decision and that the government would prepare a bill regarding the capital relocation for the House's approval as soon as possible.



The plan to move the capital from the island of Java was first announced by National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) head Bambang Brodjonegoro in April. The new capital is to act as the center of government, while Jakarta would remain the country's business and economic center.

A Bappenas team tasked with studying locations recommended three provinces in Kalimantan, namely South, Central and East Kalimantan, which all fit the requirements for a new capital, including being relatively free from earthquakes and volcanoes.

Shortly after the plan was announced, Jokowi visited two alternative locations in Kalimantan, namely Bukit Soeharto in East Kalimantan and the Triangle Area near Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan.

In his state of the nation speech in front of at the House complex earlier this month, Jokowi formally asked all officials and representatives in attendance to support his administration’s plan to relocate Indonesia’s capital to Kalimantan.

“The [new] capital is not only a symbol of our nation’s identity, but also represents our nation’s development,” Jokowi said at the time. “It’s for the sake of realizing an equitable and just economy.” (kmt) </s> KUCHING: Indonesian President Joko Widodo has announced today that the country’s new capital will be located in East Kalimantan, media reports said.

The announcement was made at a press conference in the State Palace in Central Jakarta, the Jakarta Post said, a week after an Indonesian minister prematurely revealed that the province had been chosen.

“The government has conducted in-depth studies in the past three years and as a result of those studies the new capital will be built in part of North Penajam Paser regency and part of Kutai Kertanegara regency in East Kalimantan,” Joko, popularly known as Jokowi, told the press conference.

He also said in the report that he had sent a letter to the House of Representatives on the decision and that the government would prepare a bill on the relocation for the House’s approval as soon as possible.

The new capital will act as the center of government, while Jakarta will remain as the country’s business and economic center.

Earlier news reports said the relocation was expected to begin in 2024.

The Nikkei Asian Review in its report on the announcement today said the location of the country’s new capital was near Balikpapan and Samarinda.

It pointed out that Balikpapan was home to oil refiners and a port, making it the island’s economic center, and Samarinda is the provincial capital.

“Compared with other cities, much of the necessary infrastructure is already in place. Both cities have an international airport, and they could be connected to the rest of the island via highways and railways,” the report said.

It added that that the chosen location was in a forested area owned by the government and as such there would be no difficulties in acquiring privately owned land, and “earthquakes, flooding and volcanic eruptions are less common.”

On August 16, Jokowi formally proposed the relocation of the country’s capital to Kalimantan during his state of the union speech in parliament.

About a week earlier, Jokowi said on Facebook: “Our capital will move. It will be on Kalimantan island. The location can be in Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan or South Kalimantan.”

He added that all aspects of the capital’s relocation was being studied, including the experience of other countries in moving their administrative centres.

“In deciding on the relocation of the capital, my position is not as the head of the administration but the head of the country. We have to see the bigger picture for our people and country for the next 10, 50, 100 years,” he said.

He had announced his plan to relocate the capital outside Java in May this year, citing the overpopulation on the island and the need to bring about a more equitable development to its territory. </s> JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesians leapt in with suggestions of a name for their future capital on Tuesday after the long-awaited announcement of the new city’s location gave no clue what it would be called.

“Saint Jokoburg” and “Jokograd” were among 11 suggestions from Twitter user @Enggalpm after President Joko Widodo revealed the planned location of the new capital on Monday.

“Hopefully they can be taken into consideration,” the user wrote.

Suggestions, serious and lighthearted, swept social media after Widodo - known as Jokowi - said the capital would move in 2024 to the forested island of Borneo from the traffic-clogged, sinking megacity of Jakarta on the island of Java.

The new site in the province of East Kalimantan will straddle the regions of North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara, but there was broad agreement that combining those names would be too much of a mouthful.

“Mandalanusa”, which loosely translates as center of the archipelago, was suggested by Twitter user @IdThalamus.

That reflected the fact that the site is much nearer than Jakarta to the geographic center of a country of 17,000 islands that stretch across an area of more than 5,000 km (3,100 miles) - wider than the continental United States.

A spokesman for the national development planning agency said the name has not been decided. A spokesman for the home ministry could not immediately comment.

In identifying a site for the new capital, Widodo has got closer than any predecessor to realizing an idea first mooted after independence in 1945.

But names are a sensitive matter in the world’s fourth most populous country, whose 260 million people encompass more than 300 ethnic groups.

Muslims form around 90 percent of the population, but minorities of Christians, Hindus and others still number in the millions.

Independence leaders carefully coined the neutral term “Pancasila” - five principles - as the foundation for the new Indonesian state.

“Sri Mahendrakerta”, a combination of Sanskrit words that mean a city that is blessed by the Gods to carry wisdom, uphold justice, and create prosperity, was suggested by Twitter user @AnugrahArgaS6.

On Facebook, where Indonesia has 130 million users, users suggested the name Kartanegara. Kutai Kartanegara region - in East Kalimantan - was home to a 4th-century Hindu kingdom in what is now the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Part of the justification for the move was also to get away from Java, where more than half Indonesia’s people live and which has long been politically dominant.

“The name should reflect the unique characteristic of East Kalimantan, because the government has been making an effort to make the capital not Javanese-centric,” said Kunto Adi Wibowo, executive director of pollster Kedai Kopi.

“The new capital should also not contain Joko Widodo’s name because history will remember him as the president who moved the capital. That is enough to be his legacy,” he told Reuters.

Jakarta, 2,000 km (1,250 miles) southwest of the site of the new capital and home to more than 10 million people, was named Batavia by Dutch colonists and renamed after independence. In Sanskrit, Jakarta can be translated as “Victory Achieved”. </s> Indonesia’s president has announced the proposed site for the country’s new $33bn capital on the forested island of Borneo. The new city would replace the crowded, polluted megacity of Jakarta, which is slowly sinking into the sea.

The capital of the world’s fourth most populous country, on the island of Java, is now home to 10 million people and is prone to floods, traffic gridlock and faces the risk of earthquakes.

The as-yet unnamed new capital would straddle the regions of North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara in Indonesia’s province of East Kalimantan on Borneo, the president, Joko Widodo, told a news conference.

“It is a strategic location at the centre of Indonesia, close to growing urban areas,” Widodo said at the presidential palace in Jakarta, adding that planning must start immediately if relocation is to begin in 2024.

The site of the new capital, 2,000km (1,250 miles) north-east of Jakarta, is one of the regions least prone to the natural disasters that regularly hit the archipelago of 17,000 islands.

There are also economic and political reasons for moving the capital from Java, which Widodo said was home to 54% of Indonesia’s 260 million people and generated 58% of its gross domestic product.

But environmentalists fear the move would hasten the destruction of forests that are home to orangutans, sun bears and long-nosed monkeys, as well as increasing pollution already on the rise from coal mining and palm oil industries.

“The move will have an environmental impact,” said Greenpeace senior forest campaigner, Jasmine Puteri. “Jakarta has suffered so many failures from pollution, water crisis, and flooding. We don’t want these problems in the new capital.”

Officials say they want the new capital to be “a smart city in the forest” and have set aside 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres) of government land.

Widodo said moving the administrative centre would cost just under $33bn, of which the state would fund 19%, with the rest coming from public-private partnerships and private investment. The price tag includes new government offices and homes for about 1.5 million civil servants.

Kutai Kartanegara and North Penajam Paser have a population of about 900,000 people, out of the total population of 3.5 million in East Kalimantan.

News of the move was welcomed by the developers’ association in the province, which said it expected a bump in investment. But national business groups were more cautious.

“Investors will need to see what the return on their investment would be,” Hariyadi Sukamdani, chairman of the Indonesian employers association, told Reuters.

Indonesian chamber of commerce deputy chair Shinta Kamdani hailed the new capital as a “positive” for Indonesia, but urged that companies be informed of the timeline for the move of each government office to limit disruptions.

Indonesia is not the first south-east Asian country to move its capital.

In 2005, Myanmar’s ruling generals moved to Naypyidaw, a town in hills some 320 km (200 miles) away from the colonial era capital, Yangon. In the 1990s, Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad built an administrative capital in Putrajaya, about 33 km (20 miles) from Kuala Lumpur.

Widodo said the government would soon submit a bill and the result of a feasibility study to parliament to secure approval for the new capital, a measure that analysts expect will be passed quickly.

Planning minister, Bambang Brodjonegoro, said land acquisition will start next year. </s> Jakarta: Indonesian President Joko Widodo has announced that he will move the capital of south-east Asia's largest economy away from the crowded main island of Java, decommissioning Jakarta for the first time in the country's history as an independent nation.

"The president chose to relocate the capital city to outside of Java, an important decision," Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told a news conference after a cabinet meeting, adding that the administration had yet to pick a new location.

He said moving the capital should take between five and 10 years, citing examples such as Brazil, Malaysia and Kazakhstan.

Mr Brodjonegoro said the new capital should be in the geographical centre of the archipelago nation, should be in a place with a large availability of land that belonged to the government or state-owned enterprises, and was free from the threat of natural disasters, including the volcanos, tsunamis, land erosion and forest fires to which Indonesia is prone. </s> Jakarta: Indonesian President Joko Widodo has decided to move the capital of Southeast Asia's largest economy away from the crowded main island of Java, the planning minister has said.

"The president chose to relocate the capital city to outside of Java, an important decision," Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told a news conference after a cabinet meeting, adding that the administration had yet to pick a new location.

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. </s> Indonesian president Joko Widodo has approved a long-term plan for the government to abandon overcrowded Jakarta and move to a new capital.

Indonesian president Joko Widodo has approved a long-term plan for the government to abandon overcrowded Jakarta and move to a new capital.

Indonesia set to move capital away from Jakarta

Planning minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said Mr Widodo decided at a special Cabinet meeting on Monday to move the capital outside of Indonesia’s most populous island, Java.

The site for a new capital has not been announced but Palangkaraya on the island of Borneo has often been rumoured as the favoured location.

Mr Brodjonegoro said a new capital would require an area of 30,000 to 40,000 hectares and have a population of up to 1.5 million.

Jakarta has a population of about 30 million in its greater metropolitan area. </s> Indonesian President Joko Widodo has called for the country's capital to be moved from Jakarta to another city off the main island of Java. The country's planning minister says the exact location is yet to be decided and could take up to 10 years to implement. Palangka Raya on the island of Borneo is said to be the favourite to take over as capital, as it is larger and less at risk of being hit by natural disasters.

Indonesia is considering a plan to move its capital away from sprawling megalopolis Jakarta, officials said, 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 island, Java.

Jakarta 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. </s> President Joko Widodo on Monday announced further details about Indonesia's plans to move its capital from overpopulated Jakarta to Borneo Island.

The new capital would be located in Borneo's East Kalimantan province between Samarinda City and the port city of Balikpapan.

"It is a strategic location at the center of Indonesia, close to a growing urban area," Widodo told a news conference.

Widodo said the relocation would cost $33 billion (€29.7 billion) and start in 2024.

The move is to be funded by the state, public-private partnerships and private investment.

The president earlier this month proposed moving the capital to East Kalimantan but officials had not mentioned an exact location.

Jakarta has a population of 10 million and three times that number including nearby areas. It is located on Java Island, a commercial center that accounts for 58% of Indonesia's gross domestic product and is home to about half of nation's 260 million population.

Jakarta is prone to floods and is sinking due to the overuse of groundwater. Java is also susceptible to volcanos and tsunamis.

Environmental groups have criticized plans to move the capital out of concern for Borneo's vast forests and endangered wildlife.

Widodo said he would soon submit a draft bill to parliament to approve the relocation.

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Indonesian President Joko Widodo announces North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara regencies as location of the future capital of Indonesia. He says government will prepare a bill to submit in the House of Representatives as soon as possible.