Malaysia nearing deal with China to revive scrapped ECRL, reports Bloomberg

Replica of trains for the East Coast Rail Link project are shown to the public at the Expo Terengganu 2018. -Bernama filepic

KUALA LUMPUR (Bloomberg): Malaysia is making progress in talks with China to revive a high-speed rail project that Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's government said it would cancel, according to Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.

China is willing to reduce the US$20bil (RM81.72bil) price tag for the East Coast Rail Link project and talks are "in the last mile," Saifuddin said in an interview Tuesday (Feb 19) at his office near Kuala Lumpur.
Discussions have been led by Tun Daim Zainuddin, an adviser to Dr Mahathir, with the aim of reaching a smaller project size and cost, he said.