Indonesia: UAE crown prince to lead new capital construction

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Abu Dhabi's crown prince has agreed to lead a committee that will oversee the construction of a new capital city for Indonesia that is estimated to cost $34 billion, an Indonesian official said Tuesday.

Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said it would be “an honor to play a role in the development of the largest Muslim-majority country,” Indonesian Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said in a statement.

The committee will also include Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder and chief executive of Japanese holding company SoftBank, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who currently runs the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, he said.

"We expected their presence would provide a confidence boost for prospective investors in the new capital," Pandjaitan said.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo met Sheikh Mohammed during a two-day trip to Abu Dhabi that ended on Monday.

Widodo announced last August that Indonesia's capital will move from overcrowded, sinking and polluted Jakarta to a site in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, known for rainforests and orangutans.

The capital's relocation to a 180,000-hectare (444,780-acre) site almost triple the size of Jakarta will cost an estimated $34 billion. Of that, 19% is to come from the state budget and the rest from cooperation between the government and business entities and from direct investment by state-run companies and the private sector.

Widodo welcomed talks between Indonesian officials and the United Arab Emirates, as well as SoftBank, on the setting up of an Indonesia Sovereign Wealth Fund which will be finalized at the end of this month in Tokyo, the maritime and investment ministry said.

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