Letter: Don’t dismiss Indonesia’s new capital as a vanity project

Your article “Indonesia on the hunt for traders to again its new capital” (Report, FT.com, October 2) argued that “there are issues over China’s involvement, which may deter western traders”. I disagree. Now, greater than ever, we should reject narratives which search to divide, relatively than deliver collectively the worldwide enterprise neighborhood.

The non-public sector has no selection however to work collectively over the approaching a long time if we’re to construct a greater world for future generations. Notably in a time of worldwide geopolitical division, and elevated ranges of intergovernmental antagonism, international enterprise should unlock the potential of globalisation, and be a pressure for co-operation and collaboration.

The Nusantara challenge, featured in your article, is an applicable instance of this. Our capital, Jakarta, is the quickest sinking metropolis on this planet. There isn’t any query that we’d like a brand new capital. Nusantara will be the world’s flagship trendy metropolis, and function a mannequin for the good, inexperienced cities of the longer term. All these initiatives aren’t self-importance initiatives — they’re integral to our planet’s future. The world’s city inhabitants is about to greater than double with practically seven out of 10 individuals dwelling in cities by 2050, in accordance with the World Financial institution.

We’ve got no hope of reaching our international environmental targets if city growth continues on this development — a inexperienced city revolution is required.

That is however one of many numerous international issues that the non-public sector should play an important position in. At this yr’s B20, the official dialogue discussion board with the worldwide enterprise neighborhood hosted alongside the G20 in Bali, we can be bringing collectively enterprise leaders from throughout the globe to deal with these challenges.

We should construct bridges, not partitions, throughout the enterprise world, and work collectively in pursuit of a typical future.

Shinta Widjaja Kamdani
Chairwoman, Indonesian B20
Jakarta, Indonesia