KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 — Malaysia was saving enough to pay for two more Petronas Twin Towers with the new price for the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), Tun Daim Zainuddin trumpeted today.
The former finance minister who led negotiations with Beijing on the project was touting the scale of the price reduction achieved through shortening the alignment by just 5 per cent from the original.
He contrasted this with the new negotiated price of RM44 billion that was effectively a third less than what the previous Barisan Nasional government originally agreed to pay.
“The new link is 648km, 40km shorter,” he was quoted as saying in Beijing by The Star today.
Daim’s estimation still undershot the magnitude of the savings as the Petronas Twin Towers project was launched in 1992 and completed in 1999 at a cost of US$1.6 billion, which would be the equivalent of US$2.9 billion today, adjusted for inflation.
The cost savings through the new ECRL deal would consequently be able to pay for over seven more Twin Towers, if not taking into account current land prices.
The Prime Minister’s Office also issued a statement confirming the new negotiated price with China prior to Daim’s remarks.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is scheduled to visit China later this month for a conference on the Belt-Road Initiative, of which the ECRL represents its flagship in Malaysia.
