Singapore, Malaysia sign final accord for high-speed rail link

Singapore and Malaysia signed a final agreement to build a high-speed rail that will link the city-state to Kuala Lumpur by December 2026. The accord was signed on Tuesday in the presence of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his counterpart Najib Razak in Putrajaya, paving the way for the development and execution of the 300-km line connecting the two cities. The long-envisioned plan, six years behind an earlier target, is aimed at trimming the land journey between the two Southeast Asian cities to 90 minutes, from about five hours now, with trains plying at a top speed of more than 300 kilometers an hour, the two governments have said. The link, when commissioned, is set to challenge budget carriers such as AirAsia and Singapore Airlines’s Tiger Airways, which fly passengers from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur in about an hour. <br/>