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Question of Malaysia's sovereignty at heart of HSR termination

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Publish date: Sat, 09 Jan 2021, 03:26 PM
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KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 9): A dream dashed. Calls for transparency. Land of missed opportunities. These are some of the cries uttered by Malaysians after learning that the long-awaited Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) was scrapped by the government on the first day of 2021.

While the HSR has been touted as a game changer for both Malaysia and Singapore in terms of connectivity — door-to-door travel time within 90 minutes between both country’s capitals — the issue at hand goes beyond politics and economics.

It is a question of Malaysia’s sovereignty over its own national strategic infrastructure.

Had Malaysian officials backed down in their negotiations with Singapore and agreed to continue with the HSR based on what was agreed in the December 2016 bilateral agreement, the island nation would have had a say in the running of a rail line 335km long within our territory.

In contrast, Malaysia would only have had a say in the running of a 15km line within Singapore. Also, Singapore would have been able to place their Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex in two strategic locations within Malaysia — Iskandar Puteri in Johor and Bandar Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.

Meanwhile, Malaysia would only have had access to the CIQ in Jurong East, not Downtown Core.

How could this happen? It boils down to Singapore’s insistence on having the assets company (AssetsCo) structure where a jointly controlled entity would own the rolling stocks, communications and signalling system and power grid of the entire 350km of the HSR line.

Such a structure has not been used in any HSR lines in the world.

So why, one wonders, did the Malaysian government back in December 2016 sign the agreement?

First, the cost was an issue. The AssetsCo model allows for an international consortium of companies to raise the financing required for the procurement, installation and commissioning of the HSR railway assets.

Without the AssetsCo model and the involvement of Singapore, Malaysia would have to fork out its own money to fund the railway assets itself. At a conservative estimate, the HSR would have cost about RM60 billion, with a substantial portion for the railway assets.

However, countries at a similar development level as Malaysia, such as Thailand, India, Indonesia and Morocco, have funded their HSR assets themselves, with help from international financing bodies.

In an interview with The Edge, MyHSR Corp Sdn Bhd chairman Tan Sri Esa Mohamed explained some of the issues.

Read it in this week’s issue of The Edge Malaysia.

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/question-malaysias-sovereignty-heart-hsr-termination

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Discussions
Be the first to like this. Showing 4 of 4 comments

stockraider

Rubbish loh...what sovereign risk leh ??
U think Spore going to invade msia meh ?

The join venture with spore is the best, other than sharing profit & cost there are check & balance mah...!!

Msia want to have loophole to take advantage with super clean spore govt watching find it hard to take advantage mah..!

2021-01-09 16:02

ks55

HSR from KL to Singapore benefits Singapore more than Malaysia.
Just build 15 km but going to claim all the benefits.
Something very wrong in the first place as why should last station is at Jurong East and not Nusajaya? Simply to give all the convenience to those arrogant fella, now we have to pay close to rm 900 million as compensation!
Can we have a breakdown as how the amount derived? Show us how much actually spent by Singaporean Govt. Please work out as per man-hour basis. Land acquisition of Jurong Golf and Country Club must be excluded.
Generally, I don't trust Singaporean. They will bully those who are weaker than them.

2021-01-09 18:31

calvintaneng

I think those in authority did not do a field study to know the truth

I live in a jurong which is an hour journey to Changi Airport.

By having Hsr i can travel from jurong to hsr to kl city in 50 minutes. Why should anyone in jurong want to take 1 hour taxi ride to Changi airport and spend another 50 minutes flying to Sepang airport and then from there another 30 minutes to Kl by train or taxi?

Spore per capita income is usd55,000 while Malaysia is usd10,500. Without the catchment of Spore passengers Hsr to Jb will be only a white elephant.

Regarding sovereignity look at the tran siberian railway which connect and korea, china, russia and all the way to europe

We are now in a borderless world

To lock ourselves in might be regressive like cuba or North Korea

When China built the Great Wall and closed its doors to foreign nations it was stuck in limbo

Only after Deng xio peng opened Shenzhen it grew by leaps and bounds

Malaysia being a trading and exporting nation with fantastic tourism cultures of 4 races of malay, chinese, india, eurasians and others should open wide wide its doors to embrace growth with no fear

2021-01-09 18:36

stockraider

Don be silly lah....!!

Spore willing to share risk with us loh!

Now we break the contract, then msia pay loh!

Do not forget SGD 1 is more than Rm 3 mah...!!

If HSR JALAN FROM SPORE TO MSIA....MSIAN WILL BENEFIT MORE MAH...BCOS MORE TOURIST FROM SPORE WILL COME HERE MAH BCOS OF CONVENIENCE MAH!

Posted by ks55 > Jan 9, 2021 6:31 PM | Report Abuse

HSR from KL to Singapore benefits Singapore more than Malaysia.
Just build 15 km but going to claim all the benefits.
Something very wrong in the first place as why should last station is at Jurong East and not Nusajaya? Simply to give all the convenience to those arrogant fella, now we have to pay close to rm 900 million as compensation!

Can we have a breakdown as how the amount derived? Show us how much actually spent by Singaporean Govt. Please work out as per man-hour basis. Land acquisition of Jurong Golf and Country Club must be excluded.
Generally, I don't trust Singaporean. They will bully those who are weaker than them.

2021-01-09 18:37

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