Based on media reports suggesting that the estimated cost of the HSR had ballooned from RM70 billion to RM120 billion, Wee said such an increase made it impractical for the private sector to fund it without government support.

“The original idea was to leverage the highly viable Bandar Malaysia project’s profits to finance the HSR project,” he said in a Facebook post today.

“If executed correctly, Bandar Malaysia’s profits could easily cover the entire or substantial costs of the HSR project.”

The Bandar Malaysia project was a major urban development in Kuala Lumpur that would integrate various places with transportation networks, including the HSR.

The project had faced multiple delays before being postponed indefinitely in 2021 when agreements with the consortium IWH-CREC fell through.

The Ayer Hitam MP further proposed involving the Singaporean government and its government-linked companies as project partners, as initially planned.

“This would also enhance the potential of Bandar Malaysia by encouraging more Singaporean companies to relocate some of their operations to the site,” he said.

The HSR project aims to cut travel time between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to 90 minutes, compared with the current four-hour journey by car.

Malaysia and Singapore signed an agreement to fund the HSR on Dec 13, 2016, but terminated it on Jan 1, 2021, due to several delays.

The government has said it was open to reviving the multi-billion ringgit project if it could find private investors, with a decision expected by the end of the fourth quarter whether to proceed with the project.