Moving the State Capital from DKI Jakarta to East Kalimantan brought many pros and cons. However, the government emphasized that this moving is very important for Indonesia’s future.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said the plan to move the capital city was based on considerations that Indonesia’s development and economic growth in the past decades had shown an imbalance between Java and outside Java.
“First of all, this is really necessary for the country, especially after 77 years of independence and seeing our development experience, to think about homework to create a more equitable development,” she said at the Workshop on Recycling and Management of State Assets, Thursday (8/12/2022).
Efforts to equalize this development, said Sri Mulyani, had been carried out during the current leadership of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). This is done through infrastructure development.
“We have done it under President Jokowi’s leadership, opening up a lot of infrastructures, the need to build infrastructure as a necessary condition to stimulate growth, especially outside Jakarta and Java, is very, very critical. So we have built a quite significant infrastructure outside Java Island, but also in Java,” she explained.
In realizing equitable development, Sri Mulyani also invited the private sector to play an active role in contributing from the budgetary side and participating in the development process.
“We have also completed a lot of infrastructures, such a commitment of course, not only needs and financing required from the budget but also financial contributions or participation from the private sector,” she concluded.
As is known, currently the government is building the National Archipelago National Park with the legal basis of Law Number 3 of 2022 concerning the State Capital (IKN).
Quoting from the DJKN’s official website, apart from the reason for uneven development, moving the capital city to IKN is based on reasons for economic transformation to bring Indonesia’s economy into the top 5 in the world by 2045. In that year, it is estimated that the per capita GDP is US$ 23,119.
Apart from that, the government is also considering the objective condition of Jakarta which is no longer suitable to become an IKN. This can be seen from the level of population density, Jakarta’s traffic jams, and environmental and geological problems such as flooding which occurs every year.
In addition, the occurrence of land subsidence which resulted in parts of Jakarta being below sea level was also another factor in moving the capital city.
