Dr M: ECRL’s price still not finalised yet
KLANG, Feb 25 — The East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) will continue only if the price is right, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.
In a press conference here, the Langkawi MP said that the government has yet to agree on the pricing for the controversial project that was suspended after Pakatan Harapan (PH) took over Putrajaya.
“Our hope is to spend less money. You see this railway project is very costly. More than RM55 billion. It will take us 30 years to repay the loan and we will be saddled with a lot of interest which in the end will amount to RM140 billion.
“We cannot afford that. Therefore we are trying to reduce the cost or possible we have to postpone the implementation of the project.
“If the price is right then we will continue, but at the moment, we have not agreed on the price,” he told reporters after officiating Metrod Holdings Berhad’s continuous cast copper rod plant here.
Last week, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said that negotiations with China on the ECRL were encouraging, amid news reports that Putrajaya was close to an agreement.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg quoted Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah as saying Malaysia has made progress in talks with China on the rail project that the PH government previously sought to cancel.
China is willing to reduce the US$20 billion (RM81.4 billion) price tag for the ECRL and talks are “in the last mile,” Saifuddin said in an interview at his office near Kuala Lumpur.
But Lim remained tight-lipped on the matter, saying negotiations are ongoing and that Putrajaya is committed to keeping the cost “affordable”.
During his visit to Beijing, China last year, Dr Mahathir suggested that the project was cancelled but later clarified that it was deferred instead.
Dr Mahathir explained the exorbitant compensation forced his government to reconsider. But there was also concern that cancelling the project could hurt ties with Beijing.
China was among Malaysia’s biggest trading partner, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of total exports last year.
Source : MalayMail
