Leisurely 90-minute rides to and from Jurong East and the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur? Forget about it. Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has announced that Malaysia will be scrapping the anticipated high-speed rail project, calling it “unnecessary.”
The multibillion-ringgit project will be dropped as part of his efforts to curb the country’s RM1 trillion (S$337 billion!) debt.
“One of the most important priorities, of course, is the financial situation of the country,” he told the Financial Times today.
“We need to do away with some of the unnecessary projects, for example, the high-speed rail, which is going to cost us RM110 billion (S$37 billion) and will not earn us a single cent. That will be dropped.”
The surprising decision arrived not long after the newly elected Malaysian prime minister raised the possibility of dropping the project with Singapore. In an interview with The Edge last Saturday, the 92-year-old premier indicated that his government is looking into ways to reduce the costs incurred should they drop the HSR project.
Tun Dr. Mahathir’s predecessor and former protegé Najib Razak has been accused of irresponsibility with funds and going on a borrowing spree that swelled the national debt to RM1 trillion.
Scheduled to be completed in 2026, the railway was expected to cut travel time between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to just 90 minutes. Currently, it takes from about four to five hours by road and an average 50 minutes to travel by plane.
Right now, it doesn’t seem like it’ll even be built.
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This turn of events will obviously leave Singapore in a lurch. Over the last couple of years, the Singapore government has invested heavily in the Jurong Lake District with the HSR terminus in mind. The once-sleepy district is now bustling with life with more shopping malls, a new hospital and a hotel by Genting. The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) envisioned Lakeside to be an “exciting business, residential and leisure destination” that’ll be Singapore’s second CBD once the HSR terminus is completed in 2026.
In 2015, the Singapore Land Authority even made an aggressive acquisition of Jurong Country Club to make way for the HSR terminal and other mixed-use developments.
The Singapore government has yet to issue any response to Tun Dr. Mahathir’s comments — a presumably disappointing development for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who just met his newly re-elected Malaysian counterpart in Putrajaya less than two weeks ago to personally offer his congratulations.
