{"id":52662,"date":"2020-12-03T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T05:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=165278"},"modified":"2020-12-03T13:32:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T05:32:00","slug":"pm-lee-and-muhyiddin-spoke-on-high-speed-rail-project-further-details-will-be-announced-in-due-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2020\/12\/03\/pm-lee-and-muhyiddin-spoke-on-high-speed-rail-project-further-details-will-be-announced-in-due-course\/","title":{"rendered":"PM Lee and Muhyiddin spoke on High Speed Rail project; further details will be announced in due course"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

In light of the 31 December deadline for the second and final extension of the suspension of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) Project, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Malaysia\u2019s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had a discussion on the bilateral project via a video conference call on Wednesday (2 Dec).
\nAccording to a joint statement from both countries\u2019 leaders, both Prime Ministers took stock of the progress of discussions, and gained a good understanding of Malaysia\u2019s and Singapore\u2019s respective positions.
\n\u201cBoth sides will announce further details on the HSR Project through a Joint Statement in due course,\u201d the statement read.
\n\u201cBoth Prime Ministers also reaffirmed the strong bilateral relations between the two countries covering many areas of cooperation and the sincere desire to further strengthen these relations for mutual benefit,\u201d it added.
\nPM Lee Hsien Loong in a video conference with Malaysia\u2019s PM Muhyiddin Yassin on 2 Dec 2020 (Source: PM Lee \/ Facebook) Prior to this, Malaysia and Singapore had reached an agreement in September 2018 to delay the project which Malaysia wanted to cancel due to the high cost.
\nAs the two-year deadline approaches, Singapore\u2019s Ministry of Transport (MOT) in May this year had confirmed that the HSR project will be deferred for another seven months for Malaysia to deliberate on proposed changes to the commercial and technical aspects of the project.
\n\u201cWe confirm that the Government of Malaysia has informed Singapore that it would like to propose some changes to the High Speed Rail (HSR) Project, and has requested a seven-month extension to allow both sides to discuss Malaysia\u2019s proposal,\u201d said MOT in a statement on 31 May.
\nFollowing this, it was reported last week that Malaysia has proposed several changes to the infrastructure project, according to a spokesperson from MOT.
\nThe MOT spokesperson told The Straits Times (ST) that Singapore \u201cremains fully committed to fulfilling our obligations under the HSR Bilateral Agreement\u201d.
\n\u201cWe will make our best efforts to conclude discussions with Malaysia by Dec 31, 2020,\u201d the spokesperson added, noting that Malaysia \u201cwill bear the agreed costs incurred by Singapore in fulfilling the HSR Bilateral Agreement\u201d should Malaysia decide to call off the project.
\nThe spokesman\u2019s statement came following a report by Malaysian media outlet Free Malaysia Today (FMT) , in which sources said that among changes Malaysia intends to put forth include continuing the project without Singapore.
\nThis would mean that the HSR line will end in Johor Bahru instead of connecting Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.
\nThe HSR project was announced in 2010, with an estimated rail distance coverage of 350 kilometres between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. It will also minimise travel time to only 90 minutes as opposed to 11 hours by regular train.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In light of the 31 December deadline for the second and final extension of the suspension of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) Project, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Malaysia\u2019s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had a discussion on th…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,465,120],"tags":[1845,10522,10474,2370,1859,10526],"class_list":["post-52662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chinese-law","category-social-media","category-travel","tag-facebook","tag-johor-bahru","tag-lee-hsien-loong","tag-malaysia","tag-singapore","tag-singapore-travel-hospitality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52663,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52662\/revisions\/52663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}