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Malaysian Transport Minister mentioneed that plans to have bullet trains suggested as early as 2004..now after two years of negotiations and studies..YTL says a dedicated bridge can be built?

Must be a helluva negotiator...to get Sg agree to a bridge when the Govt ink the deal ....maybe we should make YTL boss as PM.

The bridge that Tun envisaged to build took so many years to negotiate..and proved difficult for AAB too.

I salute Francis Yeoh if indeed the dedicated bridge can be built.

sorry...should read...when the Govt cannot ink the deal...

Abdullah's government has lost control, Mr Jeff. YTL knows more than Transport Minister and DPM, or are both of them acting like they didn't know? Whatever it is, NST seems to be championing this bullet train project. Is it true that Scomi is a partner in the project?

And, by the way, is not ECM Libra in some ways connected to Tajudin, as advisor?

art chan,

TDM give the green-light to Gerbang Perdana. the negotiation with Singapore just another his gimmick, he dont even care about the result of the negotiation because he got balls to build the crooked-bridge.

The way I se it is that YTL is trying to get compensation in terms of land i.e. the corridor for the so-called bullet train project...
And as usual, our govt has the "denial syndrome"...everything denied until it can no longer be denied....
Till then...G'nite M'sia wherever u are...

Jeff, I think you've given us the wrong link. It should be http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/04/bloomberg/sxytl.php

Thanks to the prosperity and great success of Singapore over the last few decades, the many large pieces of land owned by KTM must worth many Billions Singapore dollars now. Anyone would want to venture out to guesstimate how many Billion they are worth? My guess is that they must be at least over RM50 Billion, i.e. ONLY about 20 Billion Sing dollars. A Wild guess? May be, may be not… One just has to imagine the number of rows and blocks of private condos, office high rises that one can build in those prime lands located near the entrance to the Sentosa Island, near the sea and ports of Singapore. As we know, land and properties in Singapore are not cheap at all. As known, the price of bungalow land in the Sentosa Cove nearby was auctioned off at over SGD500 per square foot. In short, I think KTM are sitting on a gold mine. And the size of this “gold mine” is not small and its value are comparable to the hundreds billion RM profits made by Petronas made over the years.

As KTM is the entity owned by our country, these properties are thus owned and belonged to our country and rightly by ALL the peoples. As these are the country’s treasures and I think we MUST not allow it to be robbed by the limited gang of cronies and friends of the Government of the day.

The above, I think is the theory. To fully realize the ultimate true values of this “gold mine”, these lands will have to be properly developed, launched and marketed in a timely manner. That I think is the real challenge. Needless to say, the best and honest professionals that money can get should be employed by our Government to derive and gain the maximum benefits and profits from these lands. And to do that, high integrity, transparency and governance are required. And thanks to Singapore too, I think professionals with these sort of qualities (many of them are Malaysians too) are a relatively easy to get over there. In all, I think the Durian is now ripe and it is time to enjoy the harvest. KTM land should be fully developed, regardless of the bullet trains.

[But why is Francis Yeoh claiming "our government is very serious about this and they're encouraging us to look at it" while Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy said the government has not received any detailed financial and technical proposals.]

Aiyaaa Chan Kong Choy. Present Gov at 4th Floor lah. You're only implementor. Dont talk too muchlah!

Well hope this third bridge would be high enough to clear those large ships, otherwise the scenic bridge would be of no use.

Also on the KTM land, do note there is this clause when SG govt gave the land to KTM, that is if KTM is no longer a wholly owned entity of GOM, SG is entitled to regain ownership of the land

There is a caveat built into the KTM's S'pore land usage.

This piece of land is only allow for TRAIN used only. If no train usage then the land has to be reverted back to S'pore govt.

Ever since then KTM has trying very hard to keep this jewel by insisting of keeping the passenger clearing end point there so as to sustain the 'train services' clause.

Meanwhile the S'pore govt is also eyeing this land for development & country sovereign as its very ridiculous to have M'sia commercial custom & imigration clearing inside her territory.

So without the close cooperation between the two govts, no other comercial values can be obtained except the train services.

There lies the stalemate.

At one time DAIM was eyeing this land too & came up with some ingenuous schemes, together with the S'pore govt, to barter change this land with some other lands.

By the twist of event this deal fell through.

Wandering who now is eyeing this land & work behind the scene to ' grap' it?

YTL the "other" Mayor of KL has now become the "First" Minister of Transport. duh

If I told you it was me who suggested to ERL to extend its rail services from KLIA to Singapore, would you believe me?
The chance meeting was at a wedding reception whereby I was sitted next to the just appointed CEO before the construction of the present KLIA rail link.
The next few days, they announced in the papers that they may proceed the rail link to Singapore.
That must be about 12 years ago.
So the recent announcement isn't something new but in most probability, well thought out already.I hope they will proceed to build the rail links.