NEXT KING REKINDLES DEBATE OVER SINGAPORE RAILWAY LINK
Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar calls for high-speed line to be revived three years after plan was scrapped
Malaysia’s government is under sudden pressure to revive a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail (HSR) link to Singapore after the king-in-waiting said it should be brought back, sparking public debate on the project three years after it was shelved.
The link, originally mooted in 2016, aimed to provide a 90minute direct rail connection between the capital Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. But it was cancelled in December 2020 in part due to the multibillion-dollar price tag, despite its potential to become the pivotal, final piece in a Beijing-backed puzzle of highspeed lines connecting southern China to Singapore.
Johor ruler Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, who will assume his duties as Malaysia’s king in January, said in an interview with Singapore’s The Straits Times earlier this month that reviving the HSR would be a priority of his five-year term.
He reportedly said the project remained viable if financed privately and should be realigned to run through the troubled Forest City mega project, in which he is a key investor, and that the cost would not have ballooned so much if the government had not been “on-off-on-off” in its decision on the HSR.
The decision to cancel the estimated US$17 billion project has also left Malaysia lagging behind some of its regional peers in rail connectivity and speed.
In October, Indonesia launched its Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway under China’s Belt and Road Initiative at a cost of US$7.2 billion. Work is also under way in Thailand to build another belt and road project – an HSR line that will eventually link Bangkok to Kunming.
“When we cancelled the HSR, it was a mistake,” said Goh Bok Yen, a Malaysia-based urban land use and transport planning specialist.
Goh said feasibility studies carried out under the initial plan found that there was sufficient demand to support a Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed railway line, adding that it would have laid the groundwork to extend connectivity all the way to Bangkok and capitalise on China’s ambitious belt and road rail network plans.
“We should have had the HSR yesterday. But even if you don’t have the HSR today, you will have it one day, whether you like it or not,” Goh said, adding the economic spillovers of new urban areas and tighter connections to Singapore were also obvious.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration in July launched a request for information process for the HSR project, which analysts follow to gauge interest among potential contractors to build the rail line
The process was extended to January 15, but at least five major local firms began moves as early as May this year to set up conglomerates to take on the project if and when it opens for competitive bidding.
Analysts say leading companies in the running for a tender include YTL Corp, which was among the firms that won contracts under the original HSR project.
Logistics giant MMC Corp and WCT Holdings, the Berjaya Group and Malaysian Resources Corp are all also expected to bid for a role, given their extensive experience in construction and property development.
Resurrecting the project, however, may end up incurring a cost that Malaysia’s government cannot afford.
Earlier this month, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said any progress on infrastructure projects would depend on how much the government could afford to spend, adding that the HSR needed to be funded by the private sector for it to be a viable option.
“Funding will be the biggest challenge,” said Rosli Khan, a managing director at logistics and transport consultancy MDS Consultant Group.
“If the project is financially viable, the private sector could easily pay and fund it. But if it is not, then the project would not go ahead, irrespective of who owns what assets or which alignment is best.”
The government has not given an indication of how much the revived project could cost, though some analysts estimate it could reach US$21.3 billion.
Rosli warned that the ongoing East Coast Rail Line (ECRL) project being built along the peninsula’s east coast under the Belt and Road Initiative was an “expensive” lesson that the government should consider before going ahead with its HSR plans.
The ECRL is estimated to cost around US$10.6 billion to complete, and will service passenger and freight movement along the peninsula’s east coast to Port Klang once it starts operations in January 2027.
Passenger movement, however, is likely to only pick up during festive seasons when people working in Kuala Lumpur head back to their hometowns for the holidays, while freight will suffer from the lack of economic activity in the east coast, according to Rosli.
“Very likely the train will be running half empty on many normal weekdays,” he said.
Public opinion appears split on the HSR, with as many people on social media seeing the merits of the project as against it, speculating on the routes and areas it will serve first.
“The HSR should link major cities … not save bankrupt projects and the pockets of certain individuals,” read a comment by someone using the name Azfar Yusof to a Facebook post by local Malay daily Sinar Harian.