SENDAI (Japan), March 15 — Japan has reiterated its keenness to be involved in the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high speed train project, the first in Southeast Asia, said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

This was stated to him by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their meeting on the side-lines of the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction here today, he told Malaysian journalists.

Muhyiddin, who arrived here Friday for a four-day working visit to Japan, was present for the conference yesterday and today.

The conference here, about 380 km from Tokyo, started on Saturday and ends on Wednesday.

The venue of the conference is in the centre of the Tohoku region, which was shaken by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that resulted in the Fukushima nuclear reactor crisis.

 Muhyiddin said the high-speed train project was decided by the governments of Malaysia and Singapore to be implemented by the private sector and the offer for it would be made via an open tender.

“Generally, we are attracted by the Shinkansen system (Japan’s high speed train system). The system is efficient, (uses) sophisticated technology and safety-wise, yet to record an accident or death.

“All these will be taken into account in our assessment in selecting the party to be involved when the tender is opened,” he said.

In 2013, Singapore and Malaysia agreed to build a high-speed train track by 2020 that would reduce travel time between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to just 90 minutes.

In November last year, Shinzo Abe had stated Japan’s interest to take part in the international bidding process for the project to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at a bilateral meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the 25th ASEAN Summit in Myanmar. — Bernama