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KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 9): A substantial amount of content under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project has already been cleared and covered, said Malaysia's High Commissioner to Singapore, Datuk Ilango Karuppannan, Bernama reported today
"What is happening now is that the negotiations are still ongoing to complete the technical issues related to the MoU," Bernama reported him as saying
"I have been told that a substantial amount has been already been completed. The remaining part is related to some of the technical issues, like maybe how [the] investment [is] going to be shared," he said.
Ilango said the areas that had been discussed were primarily related to security.
"According to the Singapore side, one of their issues of concern is security... immigration, those kind of issues. That's Singapore. I'm not talking about our side," he told Bernama.
The MoU was signed on July 19 in Putrajaya and the document will guide the development of a legally-binding bilateral agreement to be signed by both governments at the end of this year.
"The understanding is that by December the two countries should have completed the negotiations... that would be the deadline for the two leaders to sign the final legally-binding agreement" but the exact date for the signing ceremony has still not been decided but Malaysia will still be the host country, Ilango told Bernama.
“The agreement was supposed to be signed in July but because we have a lot more issues that was why we decided to do it as an MoU,” he explained.
After the legally-binding agreement is signed, Ilango said that "the understanding is that they will go to the market for tendering. Both countries will jointly evaluate the tenders and fix how the tender is going to be done."
