JAKARTA (Reuters) -Foreign investors are invited for Indonesia’s plan to build a $80 billion seawall hundreds of kilometres long to prevent floods along the north coast of its most populous island Java, President Prabowo Subianto said on Thursday.
The seawall project expands on a 2014 plan by the capital Jakarta’s government to protect the city from rising sea levels and land subsidence that have caused frequent flooding along the north Java coast.
Prabowo said he would form an agency to run the giant seawall project, stretching from Banten to East Java provinces and which could take 20 years to complete. Officials have said the wall would be about 700 kilometres (435 miles) long.
“One of the most vital infrastructure projects, which is a mega project, that we need to do promptly is the giant seawall across the northern Java coast,” Prabowo said in a speech at an infrastructure event.
“(Sea) waters have threatened the lives of our people,” he said, citing some towns in central Java.
Sea levels along Indonesian coasts rose an average of 4.25 millimetres annually from 1992 to 2024, but the rate has accelerated in recent years due to climate change, according to the country’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency.
Prabowo said he had invited investment from countries such as China and Japan, without elaborating.
Experts say Jakarta is sinking due to excessive extraction of groundwater, leading the central government to plan its move to a new capital in the jungles of Borneo island.
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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