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BERJAYA Group is seeking a new partner as it bids for a proposed multi-billion US dollar high-speed rail line between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, after Malaysian Resources withdrew from the consortium, Berjaya’s founder Vincent Tan said.

“As a consortium, we have put in a proposal,” for the project, Tan told reporters on Friday (Jan 10). “After MRCB’s pullout, we may bring in a new partner.”

The rail line, which seeks to cut travel time between the two cities to 90 minutes from more than four hours by car, was earlier estimated to cost as much as RM100 billion (S$30.4 billion) as a government-funded project.

The project will now have to be fully funded by the private sector and be financially viable as the government focuses on developing “public utilities and public goods,” Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli told a forum in Kuala Lumpur Thursday.

“The determinant is very much the US dollars and cents,” Rafizi said.

Malaysia’s government already shortlisted three of seven consortiums that submitted proposals after issuing a request for information in 2023, Minister of Transport Anthony Loke said in July, declining to identify the companies involved.

Plans for the 350-kilometre rail line between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore were first approved in 2013, but then scrapped seven years later because of disagreements over costs and other matters.

Tan’s consortium includes Berjaya Rail, Keretapi Tanah Melayu, IJM and technical partners such as Deutsche Bahn, Hitachi Rail and Hyundai Rotem, Berjaya said in December.

Berjaya Rail’s chairwoman is Tun Aminah Sultan Ibrahim, the daughter of Malaysia’s king, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar of Johor, the country’s southernmost state that borders Singapore. Sultan Ibrahim has been pushing for the revival of the high-speed rail project.

Tan, a vegetarian, spoke to reporters after officiating the Brahmarpanam Soup Kitchen in Kuala Lumpur. The tycoon sponsors all the vegetables from his organic farm to the kitchen, which serves vegetarian meals to the needy. BLOOMBERG