The incredible new £28bn capital city built from scratch that will be home to 1.9m people
With its capital sinking, Indonesia is building a new capital from scratch.
Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, is sinking. It's sinking so fast that the Indonesian government is building a whole new capital city. The city of Nusantara will be built on the east coast of Borneo and will cost a staggering £28bn to construct.
Jakarta currently is home to 10.56 million, however the new capital will host far fewer than that - about 1.9 million.
Construction only began in 2022 but incredibly the government plans to have it completed by 2045.
“Nusantara will shape the new mindset of Indonesians by being a projection of the city of the future,” says Bambang Susantono, chairman of the Nusantara National Capital Authority. “With Nusantara, we will set up a new standard to live by.”
As well as saving Indonesia's capital from rising tides, Nusantara is also going to radically bolster the regional economy in East Kalimantan.
It is expected to boost local economic activity by four or five times and could generate an astonishing 4.3 million to 4.8 million jobs.
Speaking of the economic potential of building a brand new city, Ahmed M. Saeed, vice president for East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific at the Asian Development Bank said: "Developing a brand-new city provides the unique opportunity to incorporate the latest thinking on what makes a city pleasant and efficient to live, work and play in."
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Despite having a completion date of 2045, the Government are hopeful of having most of the population in place by 2029. Current plans are for 1.2 million people to be living in the centre of the city by that date.
Julian Smith, lead for environmental, social and governance (ESG), and government and infrastructure at PwC Indonesia: "The government has always rightly focused on bringing in foreign investment to help them develop the country."
"It wouldn’t make sense to try to develop Nusantara without foreign investment because then it will be sucking investment away from other sectors of the economy."