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Today's Headlines Jakarta
On Thursday (03/09), officials from the Netherlands, South Korea and Indonesia signed a letter of intent for a joint study of the second and third phase of the giant sea wall project (National Capital Integrated Coastal Development, abbreviated NCICD) off the coast of Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta.
It is estimated that about 20 million Indonesians will travel back to their hometowns during the Idul Fitri (also known as Lebaran) celebrations that mark the end of the Ramadan (the Islamic holy fasting month) next month. This homeward bound traveling is locally known as mudik. The annual mudik tradition involves millions of Indonesians taking time off from work, leaving their urban residences and travel back to their places of birth in the rural areas for a few days. During these days cities become empty.
State-controlled national airline Garuda Indonesia may need to stop direct flights between Jakarta and Amsterdam (The Netherlands) because the runway of Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport does not meet required safety standards. Airport operator Angkasa Pura II recently decreased the airport’s pavement classification number (PCN) as the surface of the runway is not strong enough to accommodate wide-body Boeings that take off while being fully loaded with passengers and fuel.
The New Cities Summit 2015 will be held between 9 and 11 June at Ciputra Artpreneur in South Jakarta. The summit, themed “Seizing the Urban Moment: Cities at the Heart of Growth and Development,” will gather around 800 urban planners, urban leaders, artists, businessmen and innovators from around the world in Indonesia’s capital city. This year’s summit is the fourth edition. Previous editions were held in Paris, Sao Paulo and Dallas. The main theme of these summits is to discuss the future of cities.
Foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia declined 3.99 percent year-on-year (y/y) to 723,039 tourists in January 2015 according to data from Statistics Indonesia released on Monday (02/03). The primary reason for this decline is that - this year - Chinese New Year fell in February, whereas last year this event fell in January thus boosting foreign tourist arrivals in January 2014. Therefore, it is expected that tourist arrivals in February 2015 will climb sharply neutralizing the decline in the previous month.
In the Safe Cities Index 2015, launched by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta is ranked at the bottom of the index. The Safe Cities Index, which covers 50 large cities worldwide (selected on factors which include regional representation and availability of data), based its ranking on an average score across four categories: digital security, health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety. In 2014, data from the Jakarta Police showed that 213 out of every 100,000 Jakartans were victims of various crimes.
Acting Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama said that the minimum provincial wage for Jakarta (Upah Minimum Provinsi) will not exceed IDR 2.7 million (USD $221) in 2015. This new minimum wage would mean a 10.3 percentage point increase from Jakarta’s current minimum wage of IDR 2.44 million (USD $200). According to the acting Governor, the new minimum wage would be above the needed salary to have an acceptable standard of living in the capital city of Indonesia (which Ahok puts at IDR 2.53 million or USD $207).
Lin Che Wei, CEO of the Jakarta Old Town Revitalization Corporation, said that renovation of the Kota Tua area is expected to be finished before the start of the 2018 Asian Games. Kota Tua (Old Batavia) is the oldest part of Jakarta, located in the northern part of Indonesia’s capital city, spanning 1.3 square kilometres, and used to function as the centre of Dutch colonial rule in the 17th and 18th century. Currently, however, many buildings in the Kota Tua area are in a state of near collapse although the area has great tourism potential.
Twitter, the online social networking and microblogging service, plans to open an office in Jakarta within the next six months as the number of Indonesian Twitter users has grown rapidly in recent years. In 2013, Indonesia had 29 million Twitter users, making it the world’s fifth-largest Twitter community after the USA, Brazil, Japan and the UK. The American social media giant already owns five offices in the Asia-Pacific region. Similar to other companies, Twitter waited until after the elections before expanding to Indonesia.
With continued economic growth in Indonesia, thus giving rise to higher per capita GDP, the property market is still expanding rapidly, particularly in the bigger cities such as Jakarta (the political and economic center of Indonesia). By 2015, 46 new property projects will add nearly 25,000 new apartments in Jakarta (‘strata title’, a term that refers to the multi-level apartment blocks and horizontal subdivisions with shared areas) with a combined value of about IDR 23 trillion (almost USD $2 billion).
Latest Columns Jakarta
So far East Jakarta has been left behind in terms of property development in the capital city of Indonesia. For many decades Central and South Jakarta have seen the construction of many residential property and office tower projects. Recently, West Jakarta experienced a major surge in property development. Few investors, however, dared to develop projects in East Jakarta as demand from the (upper) middle class and elite for property or offices in East Jakarta has been low.
It is not a coincidence that ethnic, religious and social tensions have risen in Indonesia ahead of Jakarta's gubernatorial election on 15 February 2017. Indonesian Police is currently making over hours as various people, including political and religious leaders, have been reported to police for blasphemy or hate speech. One of the people that is being trialed is incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Purnama Tjahja (Ahok), who is one of the three men who compete to become the capital's next governor.
The year 2016 was a good one in terms of foreign investment in Jakarta's residential property sector even though Indonesia's property market remained sluggish. Various foreign property developers - including China's state-owned China Communications Construction Group (CCCG), Japanese firms Mitsubishi Corporation and Tokyu Land Corporation as well as Hong Kong's HongKong Land and Malaysia's Sime Darby Group - announced to engage in big property projects (in and around the capital city of Jakarta) that have a combined value of USD $2.8 billion.
When walking around the Taman Anggrek Mall and Central Park Mall in West Jakarta, you will see several big property projects being built: a new mall (Neo Soho Mall), apartment complexes (Neo Soho Apartments and Taman Anggrek Residences) and a new office tower (Soho Capital). In terms of property development in Indonesia, West Jakarta now seems developers' favorite location. Hari Raharta, Secretary-General of the Indonesian Real Estate Developers Association (REI), informed, however, West Jakarta has seen solid property development since the opening of the Jakarta-Tangerang toll road back in 1984.
Foreigners who live in Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta are well aware of the horrible traffic situation. The lack of sufficient infrastructure development in combination with high car sales in recent years as well as the ever-growing population of Jakarta have resulted in complete standstills in many parts of the city, particularly on weekdays. To cover a relatively small distance in a car or taxi it can take hours, a loss of valuable time. Fortunately, there is a solution to these traffic jams.
The Indonesian government announced that the moratorium on the construction of the grand reclamation project off the bay of Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta has been lifted. In April 2016 Indonesian President Joko Widodo suspended all activities related to the project due to alleged violations of and/or hiatuses in Indonesian law. Moreover, a corruption scandal emerged involving one of the developers of the land reclamation project and a local Jakarta councilor.
Although development of the 17 artificial islands off the coast of Indonesia's capital city of Jakarta has been suspended (for six months) due to alleged violations of and/or hiatuses in Indonesian law, Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (known as Ahok) says he is certain that the ambitious land reclamation project will be continued after the moratorium. The construction of these 17 artificial islands is a project that is separate from (but highly integrated with) the central government's National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD) plan, better known as the Great Garuda.
Construction of a new big infrastructure project in Indonesia has started: the Semanggi flyover in Jakarta's central business district. The project involves two additional elevated ramp roads above the existing intersection at Semanggi (hence creating an interchange). Improving the existing road infrastructure at this location is required in order to ease severe traffic congestion that occurs on working days. The project, which requires high-end technology, kicked off on Friday (08/04) and is scheduled to be completed in August 2017, ahead of the 2018 Asian Games.
The Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI) advises investors and consumers not to purchase property (yet) on the artificial islands that form part of the grand USD $40 billion land reclamation project (National Capital Integrated Coastal Development, abbreviated NCICD, also known as the Giant Sea Wall) off the coast of North Jakarta. Most property developers - including Agung Podomoro Land - have already started to advertise (and sell) property units on these islands despite these developers are yet to obtain all necessary permits.
The central bank of Indonesia (Bank Indonesia) predicts mounting inflationary pressures in the months June and July due to the Ramadan and Idul Fitri festivities, the possible impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon, and the new school year. Bank Indonesia expects to see inflation at 0.66 percent month-to-month (m/m) in June 2015, particularly driven by volatile food prices (a normal phenomenon ahead of Idul Fitri). On a year-on-year (y/y) basis, Indonesian inflation is expected to accelerate to 7.40 percent, from 7.15 percent in May.
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