Incheon, Sep 19: The Executive Board of the Olympic Council of Asia today decided that Indonesian capital Jakarta will host the 18th Asian Games in 2018.

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"Today it has been approved by the EB that in 2018 will be the next Asian Games in Jakarta in Indonesia," said council president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, adding tomorrow's OCA general assembly would approve the final resolution.

"I hope tomorrow also the general assembly will approve the final resolution although we have the power because the extraordinary general assembly in Kuwait gave the president the authority to decide and find the replacement to Vietnam." (Where to watch the Games?)

India had originally started to show some interest with the Indian Olympic Association trying to get government support but the move was dropped without the requisite government backing. Jakarta had staged the Games earlier in 1962 when it was much smaller in scale but it has put one condition to host them again following the pulling out of Vietnam because of the economic pressures.

Indonesia wanted the Games to go back to its original four-year cycle after OCA had decided that the next Games will be staged in 2019 to make it one year before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Indonesia had told the OCA that were they to host the Games, it would have to be only in 2018, to avoid a clash with the country's presidential elections which are scheduled in 2019.

PTI