MALAYSIA: Seven consortia comprising 31 companies submitted concept proposals for the revived Kuala Lumpur – Singapore High Speed Rail project by the January 15 deadline.
The request for information issued by the Ministry of Finance-owned project promoter MyHSR Corp in July 2023 invited local and international companies to put forward proposals for delivering the project using a design-finance-build-operate-transfer public-private partnership model.
‘The findings from the RFI evaluation will be presented to the Ministry of Transport and the cabinet for deliberation’, said MyHSR Chairman Fauzi Bin Abdul Rahman.
‘If the response is positive, we will move on to the second phase with the request for proposal stage to obtain detailed proposals from the selected consortia.’
No details of the consortium partners have been released, but according to local media no Japanese firms participated in the RFI process.
Malaysia and Singapore signed a bilateral agreement in 2016 to develop a 350 km route offering a 90 min journey time on one of Asia’s busiest air corridors, with opening envisaged by the end of 2026. However, Malaysia subsequently expressed concern about the likely cost and a new government allowed the bilateral agreement to lapse at end of 2020, saying that it would explore the viability of a domestic project.
