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World-renowned firms to draw Indonesia’s new capital master plan
McKinsey has been hired to assist the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) while Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, which has pledged to invest in the project, will work with Nikken Sekkei.
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Lush city: An aerial view of Sepaku district in North Penajam Paser, East Kalimantan, on Aug. 28. (Reuters via Antara/Akbar Nugroho Gumay)
T
he government will bring in three international consulting firms to help develop the city master plan for the country’s new capital in East Kalimantan, which has been envisioned to become "a smart metropolis" that matches US' Silicon Valley.
Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said on Friday that American engineering company AECOM, management consulting firm McKinsey & Company and Japanese architectural and engineering firm Nikken Sekkei would design the city. The development of the new capital will make use of the latest technology and be environmentally friendly.
McKinsey has been hired to assist the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) while Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, which has pledged to invest in the project, will work with Nikken Sekkei.
“[The consulting firms] have experience designing large cities,” said Luhut outside a meeting on the megaproject at the State Palace, that was also attended by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, former British prime minister Tony Blair and SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son.
Indonesia attracted global attention when it announced in August 2019 that it would move its capital from flood-prone and sinking Jakarta in Java to a 256,000-hectare tropical rainforest straddling the regencies of North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara in East Kalimantan.
Making the development of the new capital a priority of his second term, President Jokowi has set out a grand vision for the new capital city. He said that the new city would be a “smart metropolis” and attract technological innovators who would help sustain the country for the next century and beyond.
“It will be similar to Silicon Valley [in the US], where creative industries were born and established their headquarters,” he said while revealing the plan in September last year.
