Singapore is open to reviving discussions on the KL-Singapore high-speed rail project which was terminated under an earlier Malaysian government.
"This has been amicably settled and closed," said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, disclosing that his counterpart Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob had raised the possibility of reviving the project.
"Nevertheless, Singapore's open to fresh proposals from Malaysia," said Lee, at a joint press conference earlier today.
"Singapore looks forward to receiving more details from Malaysia, so that we can study them, and consider the matter again, starting from a clean slate," he added.
The 350-km-long HSR line was first mooted back in 2013 and a binding agreement was signed in Dec 2016 with a target to have the line operational by 2026.
Instead of a four-hour drive, travellers can reach either city within 90 minutes.
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The project was postponed and eventually scrapped officially on Jan 1 2021 under a later Malaysian government. Singapore received compensation of more than $102 million for costs incurred.
At the conference, Lee also said the two countries aim to expand the current VTL arrangements to include general travellers.
However, he warns that the relaxation of measures got to take into account the impact of the new Covid-19 variant Omicron. “We are all watching anxiously to see what it does and how it will behave.”
See also: KL-Singapore high speed rail project receives seven concept proposals
Nevertheless, the borders cannot remain shut. “Even if omicron disrupts these plans, our goal will still be to have more open borders between Singapore and Malaysia and I'm quite confident and after some time we will be able to make further progress,” said Lee.
“Today, we reached another significant milestone in our cooperation,” said Ismail.
The two prime ministers agreed to resume regular bilateral interactions between the two governments that were disrupted by the pandemic, such as the 10th annual leaders retreat, which wasn’t convened in the past two years amid the pandemic.
“We will have our leaders retreat the first quarter of next year and I look forward to coming back to it,” he said.
Photo caption: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob marking the launch of the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL)-Land at Woodlands Checkpoint on Nov 29.
Photo Credit: Ministry of Communications and Information, Singapore
