TEMPO.CO, Sepaku - President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said today, December 17, that he will announce the name of the new capital city in East Kalimantan in the middle of the next year.

“In mid-year during the groundbreaking [ceremony event], we will reveal the name,” said the President after inspecting the new capital in Sepaku, Penajam Paser Utara Regency, Tuesday, December 17.

He predicted that the infrastructure of the project will commence in the middle of 2020. The government set 256,000 hectares of land for the new administrative center.

Some 56 ha of the total land will be set as the region that is not included in the autonomous province. This special area will be managed by a city manager, while the rest will be designated as conservation.

According to Jokowi, as many as 5,600 ha of the capital will have an administrative cluster. He hoped the construction project will be parallel with the building of an education cluster, a research and innovation cluster, and a financial center.

Meanwhile, the government established a competition to design the new capital city. A total of 257 creators had passed the first stage. Thirteen judges will then choose the top 5 designs, and the illustrators will be asked to present their ideas on December 19, 2019.

FRISKI RIANA