The statement comes in response to speculation circulating online about an internal letter of PT Total Bangun Persada, one of Meikarta’s local contractors, saying that there was a temporary suspension on the project’s Tower EF development in April.

Total Bangun Persada issued an official statement on May 1 that construction was continuing, but somehow assumptions lingered in public discussions that the construction of Meikarta had been halted.

On Saturday, Lippo Group CEO James Riady said 92 apartment towers were currently under development in Meikarta. Lippo had previously stated that Meikarta would have 200 towers for residents and businesses, with a projected 1 million residents to live in 250,000 apartments.

“Lippo confirms that 18 of 92 apartment towers will be handed over to customers from December this year until February next year,” James said in a written statement on Saturday.

During a progress report event at its project site in Cikarang, West Java, on Saturday, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) as the main contractor said “everything is on track and development is still progressing”.

CSCEC chief operation officer Meng Songhe acknowledged that there had been a temporary halt on the project two months ago, but that was because Lippo and the company had conducted several enhancement measures.

Those measures, Songhe said, were improvements to the city’s positioning and planning, the introduction of new concept plans and adaptation of those measures to the whole construction program. During the two months of suspension, Meikarta had also hired foreign architects to achieve a better design, he said.

In March last year, Lippo began the development of Meikarta by building a 0.9-square kilometer park called the “Central Park”, which it claimed was the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asia.

The mega project includes the development commercial areas on 1.5 million square meters and a housing area of 5.3 million sq m of land.

The total area of Meikarta’s current and future development is 22 million sq m, according to the company’s data.

With a total investment of Rp 278 trillion (US$21 billion), Lippo Group aims to open Meikarta in 2021. As of September 2017, Lippo secured 32,000 fixed buyers of apartments in Meikarta, which it claims to be the latest and biggest township project.

Meikarta residents are also slated to benefit from under-development government infrastructure projects around the area, such as Kerjati International Airport in Majalengka, the Patimban deep-sea port in Subang and elevated toll roads in Cikampek. All of the projects are located in West Java and are set to be fully operational by 2019.

Songhe of the CSCEC said his company had officially continued the construction of Meikarta, focusing this year on the completion of apartment towers and facility buildings, such as a hospital, schools, hotels and the Central Park.

“In May this year, the housing construction has been intensified,” he said. “We have finished the construction of the ground floor structures for the towers.”

In its nearest development plan, Songhe said CSCEC would continue building 62 towers before September. The development of the 62 towers which contain 63,000 apartments, would be intensified, as they had been sold to customers with total value almost reaching $1.5 billion, he said.

The finishing process of 62 towers will be divided within five batches of construction, including the completion of 14, 8 and 12 towers in the first, second and third batch.

“The project as a whole will be completed within two or three years, and the city will be more matured within three to five years,” he said.

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