Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says Singapore and Malaysia have made very good progress on a bilateral agreement on the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur High Speed Rail (HSR), and hopes both sides can sign the agreement when he and Prime Minister Najib Razak meet at the Leaders' Retreat.
"It is a very ambitious, very complicated and a very expansive project, in terms of scale. We have to try our best to anticipate what the likely issues are, when we build it, when we operate it, and have a clear understanding on how we will deal with it if a situation arises," Mr. Lee said in an interview with the Chairman of Malaysian state news agency Bernama Azman Ujang on Monday (November 28th).
On Tuesday (November 29th), Malaysian Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan met Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan, and Mr. Abdul Rahman said on Instagram they met 'to harmonise last minute details of the Bilateral Agreement on the Malaysia-Singapore High Speed Rail project before the signing ceremony in December'.
Both countries have been discussing the agreement for more than a year, Mr. Lee noted. "We are almost there, and I hope that when I meet Prime Minister Najib at the next retreat, we will be able to sign the agreement," he said. A Memorandum of Understanding for the HSR project was signed in July this year by Mr. Khaw and Mr. Abdul Rahman, and it was witnessed by the two Prime Ministers. Construction for the project is expected to begin in 2018, with trains running in 2026.
