M'sia-S'pore high-speed rail link 'engagement process' to be completed by Q4

Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato Sri' Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak attending the MoU signing ceremony between SPAD's chief executive officer, Mohd Nur Ismail Mohamed Kamal with Institute Rail Signal Engineers president David Weedon at the KL Convention Centre on Sept. 10, 2013.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is aiming to complete the engagement process with Singapore for the construction of the KL-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) link by the fourth quarter of this year, said the Land Public Transport Commission’s (SPAD) chief executive officer Mohd Nur Kamal.

“We are just starting the engagement process with Singapore. The negotiations will start soon.

“We are targeting to (complete) somewhere between the third and fourth quarters of this year,” he said.

When asked at a press conference at Rail Business Asia 2013 if the HSR would be impacted by the Government’s pending plans to keep the country’s expenditure in check, Mohd Nur said: “As of the current information we have received, we do not expect it to be impacted by that (reduction in expenditure).”

SPAD chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, meanwhile, said that it was still “too early” to talk about dishing out tenders or project costs, as the finalisation of key details of the HSR project was still pending.

“If everything remains the same, then we are still targeting for it to be completed by 2020,” he said.

Syed Hamid added that there was a need for some kind of continuity in all three mass rapit transit (MRT) projects in the Klang Valley at present.

“There definitely should not be a gap. You cannot complete MRT 1, then stop, and hopefully three or four years down the road, start lines two and three. What we have been ensured by the Government is that there would be no interruptions,” he said.

“I think you have to expect that when it is completely approved by the Government, there would be some overlaps because we have to look at the business model - how we should proceed and what are the lessons to be learnt from MRT 1, etc,” he added.

Syed Hamid said that while SPAD had done all the necessary studies, it was still too early to decide on how and when it would proceed with the second and third MRT lines.

Rail Business Asia 2013 is the thought leadership platform of Asia’s fast-growing rail industry.

(Source: The Star Online)