Japan keen on Singapore-KL high speed train project: Muhyiddin

Japan has reiterated its keenness to be involved in the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high speed train project, the first in Southeast Asia, said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

This was stated to him by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their meeting on the sidelines of the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction here, he told Malaysian journalists.

Muhyiddin, who arrived here Friday for a four-day working visit to Japan, was present for the conference yesterday and today.

The conference here, about 380km from Tokyo, started on Saturday and ends on Wednesday.

The venue of the conference is in the centre of the Tohoku region, which was shaken by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which resulted in the Fukushima nuclear reactor crisis.

Muhyiddin said the high speed train project was decided by the governments of Malaysia and Singapore to be implemented by the private sector and the offer for it would be made via an open tender.

"Generally, we are attracted by the Shinkansen system (Japan's high speed train system). The system is efficient, (uses) sophisticated technology and safety-wise, yet to record an accident or death.

"All these will be taken into account in our assessment in selecting the party to be involved when the tender is opened," he said, adding it was also important that Malaysia benefited from technology transfer in awarding the project.

"Besides this, the financing aspects must also be attractive so that the overall packages is the best on offer. All the have to be taken into consideration," he said.

He added that he had informed Abe that the project was in the fine tuning stage by Malaysia's Economic Planning Unit (EPU), Land Public Transport Commission and related agencies.