Serious Why do we even need a high speed rail between Zikapore and Matlaysia?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

“After the tender is open in the final quarter of 2017, bidders will be given a year to submit. Then the two countries will do the evaluation,” Mohd Nur was quoted as saying by the Singapore press on Friday.
But Ong expressed concerns over the project’s huge cost. “We are concerned that this will be another off-budget, big-ticket infrastructure expenditure item that will have significant consequences on government finances in the future, especially if the high-speed rail line proves to be unprofitable,” he said.
“The question should be, does the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route need to be served by a high-speed rail link. We have over a hundred flights a week from KL to Singapore via low-cost carriers as well as full-fare carriers. We have thousands of buses plying the Singapore-KL bus route.”

Given its high cost, the line is unlikely to be commercially viable without substantial financial support in the form of concessionary financing or partial absorption of capital costs by the two governments, and the selected source country, said Yeah Kim Leng, professor of economics at Sunway University Business School, in Malaysia.

http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/busine...peed-rail-link



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