JAKARTA, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government is planning to prohibit developers from building houses on rice paddies across the archipelago, said a senior official at the Public Housing and Settlements Ministry.
"The president has banned us from using rice fields to build housing," the ministry's deputy minister Fahri Hamzah said in a seminar here on Tuesday.
He also called on developers not to interfere with President Prabowo Subianto's vision for food self-sufficiency.
Indonesia is targeting to build three million houses per year, one of the primary initiatives announced by Prabowo during his time as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
In the seminar, Hamzah also confirmed that the government would not use rice fields for the three million housing program.
