The construction of a high-speed railway which would cut journey times between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to just 90 minutes is already facing delays.
During a joint press conferences, the prime ministers of both countries said that the original completion date of 2020 was not realistic.
In a statement, Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said:Â “It is a very ambitious project. It is a challenging one to carry out. There are many complicated parts to structure properly and to implement well so we looked at the timeline and the original timeline of 2020, we think is not really a realistic one.
“We have to take a bit more time to do it well, but to do it without delay so we will be tasking our officials to re-look at the timetable while we work out the agreement between Singapore and Malaysia on how to structure the project.”
He added: “This is a game changer. You can go up to Kuala Lumpur in a day, have lunch and return to Singapore or you can come down to Singapore for a day, do business because our hawker food is not quite so good, and go back to Kuala Lumpur again.”
The press conference also gave Lee Hsien Loong the opportunity to announce the location of the Singapore terminus, which will be built at Jurong East – in the Jurong Lake District. The high-speed line will include four more stations.
An agreement is hoped to be reached by the end of year at which point an updated timetable will be announced.
