The Malaysian government-owned entity, Malaysia High Speed Rail Corporation (MyHSR) Corp, announced on Tuesday that it is seeking proposals from private companies to resurrect a high-speed railway initiative between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. This move revives a multi-billion-dollar project that had been abandoned over two years prior.
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The 350-kilometre rail line, designed to connect Malaysia with neighbouring Singapore, was originally cancelled following disagreements between the two nations regarding several proposed changes to the project. At the time, the estimated cost of the venture was around $17 billion, with companies from China, Japan, South Korea and Europe indicating interest in contracts to build, operate and finance the trains and rail assets.
MyHSR Corp is now requesting the private sector to submit proposals to develop and operate the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail project through a public-private partnership model. The company is inviting both local and international firms and consortia to submit their proposals.
The company had previously engaged with selected private companies to understand their interest, capabilities and resource requirements to make the high-speed rail project sustainable. The next phase, a full-fledged Request For Information (RFI) exercise, is designed to gather concept proposals from the private sector.
The RFI exercise will enable the Malaysian government to assess the industry’s interest and ability to fully fund the project. It will also evaluate the firms’ capabilities in developing the project by scrutinising aspects such as technical specifications, project costing, commercial and business models, as well as consortium and governance framework.
MyHSR Corp chairman Fauzi Abdul Rahman commented, “The KL-Singapore HSR project will bring tremendous benefits to the people, particularly in enhancing and expanding economic dynamism from the Klang Valley to the Southern Corridor of the peninsula, and eventually to the rest of Malaysia.”
Singapore had previously indicated its openness to new proposals from Malaysia for the project. The city-state’s last official comment on the project was in August 2022 when the Transport Ministry stated Singapore was willing to discuss any new proposal from Malaysia “in good faith, starting from a clean slate”.
However, the Singaporean transport ministry has yet to respond to the latest request.
The original high-speed rail project aimed to reduce travel time between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to about 90 minutes. It was discontinued after multiple delays at Malaysia’s request, eventually leading to a lapse in the agreement in December 2020. Consequently, Malaysia paid more than S$102 million (US$76.25 million) in compensation to Singapore for the terminated project.