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team from the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) is slated to visit Indonesia early in August to assess sports infrastructure in Jakarta and Palembang, South Sumatra, in advance of the 2018 Asian Games.

Chairwoman of the Indonesian Olympics Committee (KOI) Rita Subowo said on Wednesday that she had yet to get information on how long the team would be in Indonesia.

'€œWe haven'€™t talked about the details of their visit,'€ Rita said.

Rita said that a team from OCA had previously conducted an initial inspection in Jakarta and Palembang in May and concluded that both cities were qualified to host the 18th Asian Games and Indonesia had been given preference following the withdrawal of Vietnam'€™s capital Hanoi in April because of economic problems.

Jakarta was appointed as main host and Palembang was named co-host for the quadrennial multi-sport event after an OCA meeting in Kuwait last week that was attended by South Sumatra Governor Alex Noerdin and Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama.

Alex had expressed that South Sumatra was without a doubt ready to host the prestigious event after having previously hosted the 2011 Southeast Asian Games and the 2013 Islamic Solidarity Games.

'€œWe only need to renovate the existing venues. We don'€™t need to build new ones for the event,'€ Rita said.

The games are scheduled to be held in 2019, but the OCA had decided to allow the host country flexibility to hold the Games in 2018 rather than the following year. Since Indonesia will be holding presidential elections in 2019, the host country decided to move the 18th Asian Games to 2018.

The upcoming 17th edition of the Asian Games is slated to take place from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4 in Incheon, South Korea. More than 100 Indonesian athletes will compete in 23 of the 36 events being held.

Ahok said that should Jakarta officially be elected to host the 18th Asian Games, it would give a tremendous boost toward renovating many of the city'€™s sport facilities.

Ahok said he hoped the central government would help the city prepare all the necessary infrastructure, as well as the sports and other supporting facilities, including the renovation of the Gelora Bung Karno sports stadium in Senayan, Central Jakarta, which was built to host the opening ceremony of the fourth Asian Games in 1962.

'€œWe will also immediately build the BMW Park stadium in North Jakarta, so it can accommodate around 80,000 spectators,'€ he said.

He added that the city would also accelerate the construction of the mass rapid transit (MRT) system, the light rail transit (LRT) system and more roads in order to enable the city to host the prestigious event.

'€œWe hope that the construction of the mass rapid transit and the light rapid transit loop lines for the electric trains, six toll roads and the improvement of the city'€™s bus system will all be realized by 2016 or 2017,'€ he said.