President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo (left) talks to journalists on July 29, 2024 while visiting the newly built presidential palace in Nusantara, East Kalimantan, the country’s future capital. - AFP
JAKARTA: The government is teaming up with South Korea to build an underwater toll road for Nusantara, which is estimated to cost some US$690 million and will be the country’s first, an infrastructure director at the Public Works and Housing Ministry has announced.
“The estimated cost to finish the immersed tunnel is around Rp 11 trillion,” Wida Nurfaida said on Wednesday (Aug 7) at the Indonesia-Korea Technical Exchange Seminar & Business Networking 2024, as quoted by Tempo.co.
“The plan is to partner with the South Korean government.”
Wida added that the planned toll road network project for accessing the country’s new capital would span 88.54km, Kompas.com reported. Of this total length, 67.65 km had been built at an average cost of Rp 305 billion per kilometer, leaving around 20.89 km to be built for an investment cost of Rp 6.38 trillion.
The tunnel is part of a 47-km highway connecting Nusantara and Balikpapan’s Sepinggan International Airport. Commonly used for undersea roads and railways, immersed tunnels are typically built in segments on land and then are sealed and floated into position, where they are submerged and assembled.
Danis Hidayat Sumadilaga, head of the ministry’s Nusantara infrastructure development task force, said in August last year that construction on the underwater toll road would commence this year.
He said at the time that the tunnel would be rectangular and designed to accommodate six lanes, with each segment spanning 1-1.5km in length.
The project was estimated to take two to three years to complete and funded by the state budget, although the door was open to private sector participation.
However, Highways Director General Hedy Rahadian said in September last year that construction on the underwater toll road would start after 2024.
South Korea has been investing heavily in the country, overtaking the United States and Japan in the second quarter of this year to become the third-largest foreign investor with $1.3 billion in total FDI. Read also: South Korea overtakes US, Japan in FDI to Indonesia BCA chief economist David Sumual told The Jakarta Post on July 29 that foreign direct investment (FDI) from South Korea might reach the same amount as funding from China and Japan in the long run.
During the first half of 2024, however, South Korean investment totalled less than that of Singapore, China, the US and Japan, at respectively $8.9 billion, $7.7 billion, $2 billion and $1.8 billion. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
