Singapore (VNA) – Singapore and Malaysia have decided to postpone the signingof a bilateral agreement on a 14.7-billion-USD high-speed railway project dueto slow scheduling and other administrative issues.
According to theMalaysian Prime Minister's Department, Prime Minister Najib Razak and hisSingaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong were initially scheduled to meet inJohor Baru, Malaysia, on December 5, and witness the signing of the High SpeedRail (HSR) project during their annual retreat.
The Malaysianside suggested December 21 as the new date.
Previously, thetwo sides reached consensus on fine-tuning some details of the project. InJuly, they signed a memorandum of understanding on facilitating further negotiationsof the deal.
Construction of the350km high speed railway connecting Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur and Singapore isscheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed in 2026.
Allowing trainsto run at a speed of 300 km per hour, the railway is expected to reduce traveltime between the two destinations to 90 minutes from the current 5 hours andserve some 20 million passengers per year.-VNA