(Bloomberg) -- Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo signaled that plans to shift to its new capital this year could be delayed, Bloomberg Technoz reported on Tuesday.
A presidential decree that will designate Nusantara, the name of the new capital city being built from scratch in the middle of Borneo’s jungle, could be issued before or after October depending on the situation on the ground, Technoz said, citing Jokowi, as the president is better known.
“We don’t want to force something that is not ready. Don’t force it. We need to assess the progress on the ground,” Jokowi said as cited in the report.
Delays to move to the new capital city is set to exacerbate skepticisms that the real estate project could come to fruition, especially since it has yet to secure any foreign investors. Despite various incentives offered by the government, the new capital city has obtained a mere 49.6 trillion rupiah ($3 billion) in total investments, all of which came from local companies and state-owned institutions. The city’s authority has said that domestic funding can only cover 20% of the total costs.
Jokowi’s comments is also a departure from his optimistic stance just a month ago, when the Indonesian leader said he planned to start working from the new capital as soon as July. They also came a month after the head and deputy of the agency overseeing the development resigned, generating further uncertainty over the project’s completion.
Construction of Nusantara involves five phases, with the project scheduled for completion by 2045. By then, the government intends to shift some 1.9 million people from the current capital of Jakarta to ease congestion.
Bloomberg Technoz is a partnership between Mayapada Group’s PT Berita Mediatama Indonesia and Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.
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