Indonesia President Joko Widodo told his cabinet and other senior officials on Monday that preparations for the 2017 Indonesian Moto Grand Prix and the 2018 Asian Games "should be completed before the end of the year, to ensure that the two prestigious events can to be held successfully," according to the JAKARTA GLOBE. Joko said, "[Regarding] the Asian Games in 2018, I want to ask again particularly about the preparation of venues." Joko said that he "also wanted to check progress on other facilities to support the events, such as transportation." Indonesia has a four-year period for preparation, "significantly shorter than the usual six years." The country was offered to host the Asian Games in Sept. '14, "following the withdrawal of original host Vietnam, for economic reasons." On MotoGP preparations, Joko "specifically stressed the need to speed up the preparation of Sentul Circuit, south of the capital." MotoGP organizer Dorna Sports has set a deadline of Jan. 31 for the renovation master plan, "but that plan is still nowhere to be seen." Youth & Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi said, "We haven't received any master plan for Sentul Circuit, so we cannot propose the presidential decision [to allocate funds]" (JAKARTA GLOBE, 1/11).
