LTA forms subsidiary to head up High-Speed Rail project

Commuters at KL Sentral railway station in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, one of the terminals for the high-speed rail (HSR).

SG HSR will build, own, fund and maintain the civil infrastructure here, including the HSR station in Jurong East, tunnels and part of the connecting bridge over the Straits of Johor.

It will work with its Malaysian counterpart MyHSR Corp, a unit under the Malaysian Ministry of Finance, to jointly appoint an assets company and an international operator through a “fair and open international tender”.

The LTA subsidiary, which will have an initial share capital of $1 million, will also administer various concessions when services commence.

“Given that this is a long-term project with a significant construction phase of approximately eight years before service begins, SG HSR is expected to receive funding support from the Government in the initial years,” said an LTA spokesman.

“SG HSR will provide stronger management focus and dedicated resources to handle the complexities of the project and meet the ambitious 2026 timeline,” said LTA chief executive Ngien Hoon Ping, adding SG HSR will work under the “close guidance” of the LTA and Singapore’s Transport Ministry to ensure smooth implementation of the project.

Mr Rama Venkta, previously the project director of the LTA’s HSR Group,will serve as the managing director of SG HSR, while Mr Chin Chee Kiat – who previously held concurrent roles in the LTA’s policy and planning group as well as the HSR Group – has been appointed its deputy managing director .

LTA chairman Alan Chan will also be the chairman of SG HSR’s seven-person board of directors, while LTA deputy chairman Richard Lim will serve as its deputy chairman.

Slated to be completed by end-2026, the 350km Kuala Lumpur-Singapore HSR is expected to cut travel time between the two cities to 90 minutes.