Japan has confirmed its bid for the contract to build the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) network, said to be South East Asia’s largest ever infrastructure project. The package being offered by the Land of the Rising Sun is claimed to be all-encompassing, covering technological, financial and economic aspects of the project for the betterment of both Malaysia and Singapore.
In an interview with Bernama, Japanese ambassador to Malaysia Makio Miyagawa said that Japan will offer the best technology through the Shinkansen, the world’s first high-speed rail system. He added that the country will also provide total transfer of technology and local vendor development that will greatly benefit Malaysian and Singaporean companies, including small and medium enterprises.
“We will be offering our best suited technologies to Malaysians and Singaporeans as well as full-fledged training for the officials, operators and engineers of both countries so that they can start the operations by themselves from Day One,” Miyagawa said. “Japan would also like to offer the most comprehensive financial package which would certainly help the two nations to reduce as much of their financial burden as possible.”
Miyagawa noted that such an arrangement would be in line with Japan’s longstanding philosophy of economic assistance, particularly in Asia. “The philosophy of our economic assistance has all along been in such a way that Japan has assisted the recipient nations to stand on their own feet.
“It would not like to dominate the benefits but to share them. It would withdraw from the operation when you are ready to take over. If you would like us to stay on for some years, we would. It is not the Japan’s way to win [a contract] and run away. That would be irresponsible,” he said.
Japan has already offered technology, human capital and financial resources to enable its companies to collaborate with Malaysian and Singaporean companies, Miyagawa said, adding that this would help all the companies and the private sector as a whole to go hand-in-hand to advance together.
“In the high-speed rail system, our government and private sector would be ready and are very keen to collaborate with the local industries in Malaysia and Singapore so that the gradual transfer of technology and human capital will succeed and will help newly-introducing technology nations like Malaysia and Singapore to operate the system right from the start,” he said.
The project, Miyagawa added, would boost the economies of both Malaysia and Singapore by linking them together as well as the burgeoning mega cities in Asia. “The connectivity will increase and along the alignment many cities will flourish. And that is why we are very happy to participate in this project,” he said.
Miyagawa also brought up the Shinkansen‘s safety record, which he said is the most important aspect in any public transport system. “Japan invented the bullet train technology. The advantage of the Shinkansen is that it has been operated for almost 50 years without any fatal accident or human capital problems.
“This is the merit of the system which is based upon the superiority of the hardware as well as the excellence of the software operations, based upon the accumulated know-how of the engineers and operators in Japan,” he said.
Bids for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail project must be submitted by the middle of this year, with the contract expected to be awarded by end-2018. Other countries that have expressed interest in the project include China, South Korea and France.
The companies involved in the project, MyHSR Corporation in Malaysia and HSR Pte Ltd in Singapore announced on December 20 that they would start accepting bids for a railway “assets company” responsible for designing, building, financing, operating and maintaining all rail assets. Second finance minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani reportedly said that the project will cost between RM50 billion and RM60 billion.
The 350 km line, which will incorporate eight stations, is intended to cut the travel time between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to 90 minutes, and is expected to stimulate the economies of several localities along the route. Operations are set to commence around 2026.
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That depends how low they willing to lowball.
Else, China > all
Given Japanese superiority of the hardware and excellence of the software, in addition, their generosity to provide total transfer of technology and local vendor development that will greatly benefit Malaysian and Singaporean companies.
Japan has the best and reliable technology through the Shinkansen.
That sounds like sarcasm.
Does Japan know that undertable is our culture? If cost RM30 bil, please get ready another RM30 bil (total RM60 bil) for undertable money. Must pay all the abang abang for approval
Going with current trend of our government choices it’s almost certain that China will win the bid.
Or which side can donate more…
Jepunis lord need to sell on price now. Cannot rely on jepunis quality after steelgate, QAgate, FCgate, airbaggate & axlegate. But how low they can go compared to China? Is nippon gov gonna provide tongkat to their kompeni for this bid like what China’s did?
pray hard its the jap not the chinese that get it
hoping it will be Kawasaki.
I can guarantee you with absolute certainty that with the way the government is going about things, a China company will get the HSR project.
If Singapore making the decision, they will choose Japan, because Singapore will against China in everything
If Malaysia making the decision, they will choose China, because Malaysia will decide base on what is good for them.
German engineering & tech. nuff said
Totally agree that Siemens and DB trains from Germany are the only competitors to Shinkasen in the world. Unfortunately, they along with the French are not expected to get this project
Siemens not pushing for their trainsets, instead they pushing to sell their control systems to either the train provider. Meaning they may winrar either way.
Siemens train sets used for MRT la.
Alstom is a good choice. Alstom have in-depth expertise in Msia civil infrastructure projects albeit some bribery allegations.
@Tok Kok John
B4 calling pipu names, pls read properly. No where it mentions about MRT. All i said is Siemens might prefer to sell their backend system rather than pricewar with China. So instead of 33% chance of victory, they go for a 50% chance.
@DS
Alstom is more well known for infra, their trains is not really hot, more for local French markets. In any case, their merge with Siemens last year will create uncertainty to customers.
Its unfortunate Bombardier dun have the right trainsets. Their PUTRA lrt trains & backend systems has proven to be quite reliable over the decades.
Alstom is one of the major established competitor to the Kawasaki’s & Hitachi’s Shinkansen.
Siemens and Alstom has merged for the transportation business.
No. Stop give German a blind support:
1. German not in the list.
2. German high-speed train has fatal history while Shinkansen has none.
All the train systems have fatal history, with the exception of the Shinkansen. China has the worst record with the most fatal history
Chinas issue was due to Act of God, while Shinkansens near miss recently was due to act of man (substandard materials).
Malaysia sapott Chinas.
Agree.. Germany has no competent in high-speed railway project.. even they had failed their maglev project which was now being sold to china.. a fail premature product..
Not necessarily. Latest SMRT trainsets r from China. Given that both MY & SG had experience handling China trains and not jepunis, its more natural for both parties to go for known China instead of unknown jepunis.
Most if not all SMRT train sets are mainly Kawasaki(Japan), Alstorm(French) or Bombadier(Canadian), but are co-produced with Chinese company such as Shanghai Electric, CRRC Changchun and CRRC Qingdao. All trains are run with western system from Thales or Alstorm or Westinghouse. Kawasaki-CRRC Qingdao trian set was sent back to China due to faulty Chinese made batteries which was swap to German ones and all are to be returned circa 2020.
As for Malaysia, we only have a Class 91 serving the ETS route made by Hyundai-Mitsubishi, the rest are a mix of CSR Zhuzhou trains. our other lines are Bombadier (Kelana Jaya Line) Siemens-CSR Nanjing (MRT S.Bulog-Kajang) and CSR Zhuzhou (Ampang line). Malaysia’s line were previously a mix of everywhere really only post-2005 did we recognise the might of the PRC, and began our transition to a China no.1 nation.
CSR > Hitachi
CSR > all
The thing with China trainsets is, they can use proven control systems from Siemens or Rockwell Bradley. Basically, getting western trains at fraction of their ori cost.
This unlike jepunis which mandates everything comes from nippon and if anything goes wrong, need to go back to them with arm, leg, and both kidneys.
Not something we can afford in long run.
New York city subways, British Rail Class 395 ‘Jevalin’ and the just mentioned SMRT all are Japanese engineered and made train running on foreign control system.
But I can understand your concern, having Chinese train in Malaysia will not only be cheaper, but it will bolster our relationship with the big dragon. As the soon to be the largest economy in the world, it will only bring benefits to us.
As I understand, Shinkansen is fully jepunis tech, being specifically developed for jepunis market only. To re-adapt to use foreign control systems will definitely be costly and time consuming.
iirc, China shinkansen is built on the back of Siemens system with gradually more China localised parts.
Of the two foreign countries that uses the Shinkasen system, Taiwan and UK, UK has its own control system installed in their ‘395’ thou you can hardly call that a Shinkansen even thou the basis of it is an elderly 400 series ‘narrow-gauge’ Shinkansen. The Taiwanese uses the faster 700-type Shinkansen, and that uses the D-ATC. Japan prides its D-ATC system for its safety so it would be hard to see how they wouldn’t promote its use on a speculative ‘Malaysian Shinkansen’. It can detect ,on top of other things, obstruction, flood, earthquakes, a slower train, and re time the Shinkansen to still arrive on schedule, main reason why most Shinkansen is limited to 300kph is also because of that, every train arrives perfectly on time.
Add to that, should we go for a CRH or Valero design, I dont see how their respective maker would not implement their own train control, given our High speed line is a fresh design and not an additional rolling stock.
China’s system is an amalgamation of many train system, even Shinkansen as China ordered E2-1000 design from Japan of which they are built in Japan before being CKD to China under CRRC Qingdao, called the CRH2. CRRC Qingdao would use its lesson building CRH2 from Mitsubishi, The Siemens Velaro based CRH3 and the the Bombardier Regina based CRH1 to built the CRH380A which would be the backbone of their HSR line which was involve in the Wezhou train collision.
If given choice, I will preferably go with CRH on Siemens or Bombardier system, due to our familiarity with both and we not beholden only to 1 country for parts sourcing. We can get from China or their respective home countries (Germany/Canada).
Are you for sure? Singapore latest MRT train sets came from China.. China HSR is 10x longer than Shinkansen.If you think China,they can produce low quality at lowest cost and highest quality at reasonable cost too.. China faced unprecedented HSR incident in 2011 but they had learnt from it quite fast.Maintenance cost for Shinkansen way higher than China HSR.. that’s facts.
Yes all of the new Singapore MRT train sets are from China, which ia why they have so many breakdown problems. In the past they used Hitachi sets from Japan which were highly reliable without any breakdowns. The Malaysian MRT sets from Germany are far more reliable than Singapore’s
SMRTs problematic breakdowns r more pervasive than just due to China trains alone. Their entire system and operation is on verge of total breakdown.
Uhmmm… But why chinese smrt which operates on longer lines than singapore didn breakdown in their own land??? As far as i remember, there were news of singaporean elevators from japan or germany that breaks down far more often than they were in their country of origin
And out of 350km, Singapore only own 5km that is 1.4% !!!
Public transports > all
In the end China will get the contact. Because they offer an even more attractive “financial package”
We would prefer total technology transfer from Japan though.
“Full Package”
Meaning if anything happen, must diedie go back to seek jepunis help which they will gip for an arm, leg and both kidneys. Otherwise, sendiri sayonara.
Hopefully, the Japs get the deal. They more reliable and up-to-date on technology. Malaysia can also learn some serious “customer service” techniques from them.
I have worked for Japanese company for many years, they keep their business secret very tight, basically they only want you to be a good worker and do all the donkey job. Saying Japanese will transfer the technology is a big BS. Look at Proton after 30 over years, what we get?
Look at Proton after 30 over years, what we get? We got Proton achievements & technology.
Proton own proprietary waja, gen2, savvy, exora, suprima, persona, saga3 & efficient Campro engine. Proton FTW!
Yup! And still debadging the Accord.
Yup! So tenkiu Japanese boss, Arigato!
Jepunis only transfer us “the art of bowing” technology.
No brainer, China will get the contract.
Hope Japan wins this one. Tho china one can do for cheap nia.
If I’m the one to decide, I will choose the korean. Just to piss off chinese and japanese
Kimchi trainsets not really high speed (>250kmh), so its out of the picture.
Are you so sure? Have you been on Kimchi’s KTX?
Their high speed line (300kmh) is very short unlike their mid speed line (<250kmh). This does show their trains not designed to sustained the higher speeds needed for HSR
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_Train_Express
Best looking is E7. E5 looks like pensel sharpened, and E6 looks like psyduck bill.
China will bring in all Chinese workers to do all work, and also cement, steels etc and no economy benefits.
Japan will benefit local suppliers to create a better technology transfer and economy benefit locally.
Just like Iskandar, the contract can stipulate whichever victor must use local materials as much possible and local workforce as well. Problem is, whether MY pipu wanna work in 3D environment like construction sites. All now hi keras dunwan berkerja buruh, even thou sit at home ranting being jobless on internet.
BTW, neither jepunis nor kimchi transfer any tech during construction of both KLCC towers. Jerman and China still okays cuz locals learned alot during MRT1 which they now doing the lead for MRT2.
If China will be the winner for HSR then they have “conquer” both west and east coast of Peninsular Malaysia..East coast with ECRL and west coast with HSR. Is this what we want?
Preferably, it should be different situation for the HSR. But who knows? Now it depends on the Tender Committee..
You can give us 1st World technology, but doesn’t mean we will have 1st world mentality. Just look at the vandalism done in our mrt stations.
So, better to just give us China technology.
While i do agree with that conclusion, HSR is more marketed to the higher end clientele, specifically those expats & SGpipu living in KL and commute to SG for work.
Face the reality that Chinese Train maker are far cheaper compare to Korea and Japanese. While, we do use siemens train for the KLIA Express in the early stage until recently, we purchase new train set from CRRC.
What I can see is is as long as the Trainset is human driver and not driverless, the government are more interested to purchase from the Chinese manufacturer.
Kelana Jaya Line is from Bombardier as well as MRT 1 – Siemens and MRT 2- Rotem. While the body of the train can be from local partner with china manufacturer. It is the signalling system that we still need to get from Western/Korean/Japanese manufacturer.
Inview the HSR will travel more than 300 km/h, precision engineering, quality standard and maintenance effort will contribute to the success of the Train operation in general.
So the question is, will Malaysia government split the scope of work to few country whereby signaling system will come from Japanese? Rolling Stock from Chinese?
Or rolling stock from ROTEM since Rotem is cheaper compare to Japanese.
Just a guess unless they want to swallow the whole 350km line and only limit to 1 provider due to political will, financial and maintenance package.
Control system is most probably Western, specifically Siemens due to our train services mostly using it. That leaves only Siemens/Alstom trainsets or China trainsets with Siemens controls. Narrow this down further and u will probably get the most logical selection.
If china built later on, can be more easy connect to the “silk road”. If using Japan maybe have to change train later on, because different system.
China already has various experience on different environment even at desert and the coldest place, maybe it prove more suitable use in Malaysia.
Bid what lah. China straight lah… Japan can’t be cheaper than them, and China can do the financing with u straight without going through world Bank and loaning.
I think so as well.
But it will be very interesting if Malaysia wanted to strengthen bilateral trade with Japanese counterpart. Prior to 1997 Financial crisis, if i not mistaken, Hitachi involved in the design of the KL Monorail but halted. Ever since Chinese expanding overseas, Japan investment in Malaysia are lagging behind.
Most of the infrastructure in Malaysia ranging from building, road, bridges, train network are related to Chinese investor.
I think, we should not put everything into one basket by looking at the history, we always maintain relationship with various country.
What is the great immense value of spending 50-60 billion RM (not including yearly maintenance & repairs) just to reduce travelling time by 90 minutes? The positive side is it provides employment opportunities but the Japs may even bring in the own chefs or gardener………….. screws & nuts. Maybe someone can enlighten me or us. :) Who are the targeted customers…passengers, goods transportations with lower/higher cost? ……..ape nama lagi.