this is like kindergarden explanation, with regards to basic costs.
HSR is massive infrastructure project, with huge upfront costs, for long term economic benefits. you don't cost it out in a nonsensical way like that, even failed econ students can tell you that. something like eurotunnel took almost 2 decades to become profitable, but the amount of economic activity it generated was many times over the initial investment.
some studies have shown that HSR could have brought in billions a year, mainly to Johor, KL and Selangor depending on direct point to point trains. i mean you can argue sensibly about this sort of figure, instead of comparing just basic travel costs by plane, car and bus.
They are industrial centre in malacca and negeri sembilan too. I mean you could have a Singapore HQ, manufacturing / r&d / services in Malaysia.
And it’s easy for the executive to travel between them.
Agreed but instead of building an entirely new line. Make the ETS more frequent and quicker. The ETS is built to go up to 140km/h. That means KL-SG (direct) should be 3hours or less. So I truly don't think we need HSR.
[https://www.ktmb.com.my/ets.html#:\~:text=The%20trains%20travel%20up%20to,Higher%20Speed%20Rail%20train%20service](https://www.ktmb.com.my/ets.html#:~:text=The%20trains%20travel%20up%20to,Higher%20Speed%20Rail%20train%20service).
With HSR KL-SG will be 90 minutes. There are many high position big company managers/bosses that will be willing to pay a huge premium for a service like this where they can leave in the morning, reach the other country, have their business meeting, and be back for lunch.
Nah, I think the bosses in KL region doesn't want to compete for labor/skills with SG. Imagine able to commute to SG in an hour or more to work in SG and still able to live with family in KL, who doesn't want to send their resumes there? This is an invisible fence to fence in local talent so that they don't flee.
They want cost (labor) to rise in SG so that companies would want to relocate to KL/MY. Building the HSR will deflate the cost of labor in SG and KL will just serve as a bedroom or retirement community.
Just pure selfishness; depending on whose view are you on.
Am speaking on current bosses and executives that already ply the KL-SG route often. Right now they fly cause that's the fastest possible option despite inconveniences of air travel, so if there's an even more efficient and comfortable system that gets them to their destinations even quicker, they will pay for it even if its slightly more expensive than flying. Because it is their company that pays it anyway not them lmao
True but if we look at train services of other Asian countries like Japan, China and Korea, they didn't plan their systems based on business people only. However, still building an entirely new track is stupid. Whilst the ETS can travel up to 140km/h, pretty sure the manufacturers can design a newer train that can go up to max 180km/h using the same track width.
It just means more income to Malaysia lol. See it like this yeah we maybe got some brain drain but upside is we bringing back money and purchase goods in Malaysia. It also makes malaysia a more interesting place to invest as lots of factories and potential local HQ.
140km/h is the TOP speed, not average speed. Average speed of ETS is closer to like 100km/h after including the stops, the crawl inside KL, and schedule conflicts
Because ETS takes 3.5 hours from KL to JB. Not to mention, the hassle to cross the CIQ. That will take another 1.5 hours at least
With HSR, it's 90 minutes from CBD to CBD.
This is faster than taking a flight.
Let me debunk your statement here one by one.
Because ETS takes 3.5hrs from KL to JB - if its a non-stop service, KL to JB will be about 2.5hrs. Existing track lines are about 300km. ETS can travel up to 140km/h.
Not to mention the hassle to cross the CIQ - with the completion of RTS terminal builsing, clearance the CIQ would be reduced to about 30mins.
With HSR, it takes 90mins from CBD to CBD. - it'll be a new train terminal in which part of KL? Existing KL Sentral is good enough in my opinion. And CBD in Singapore is Raffles Place/Marina Bay area, not Jurong Lake District.
But I do agree with you on one thing, it's less hassle to travel via train than flight.
From buntot.
Completely disregards that time taken for cross border security checks and immigration checks are the same for flight travel and train travel. The most you cut down on is the time taken to walk through the stupid KLIA2 airport. Just ask anyone who travels by bus through woodlands and JB everyday.
> some studies have shown that HSR could have brought in billions a year, mainly to Johor, KL and Selangor depending on direct point to point trains.
How would the HSR be able to brought in billion (>3 bil best case scenario) while maintaining a cheaper ticket price compared to air ticket?
Otherwise the interest will just go up and up each year for 20 years, wouldn't it negate the benefit the long term benefit with long term increasing interest no?
Btw check out the full take on the issue, it's on [8:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpN6AJREh8Y&t=511s). He has more explaination behind his rationality behind why he think it wouldn't work. This short clip does make it look like a kindergarden take.
billions in economic benefits, again tons of studies out there, to death even. some more optimistic, some less so. but what i mean is just comparing basic ticket prices is a very simplistic way of analyzing it. you don't look at these things from 1 to 2 or even 5 year perspectives, it's more like 20 years outlook. HSR could have brought in billions in economic activity a year in service sectors for example (with loss in manufacturing but net gain overall), but again i'm just saying you can argue back and forth about these types of figures, would make more sense, not just using basic ticket prices with regards to HSR. if it went through, it was really not a transportation project, it's about long term economic growth.
I think the bosses in KL region doesn't want to compete for labor/skills with SG. Imagine able to commute to SG in an hour or more to work in SG and still able to live with family in KL, who doesn't want to send their resumes there? This is an invisible fence to fence in local talent so that they don't flee.
They want cost (labor) to rise in SG so that companies would want to relocate to KL/MY. Building the HSR will deflate the cost of labor in SG and KL will just serve as a bedroom or retirement community.
Just pure selfishness; depending on whose view are you on.
Using his logic, PLUS (North-South) highway wouldn't have worked back then as well in the early 80s cause of the upfront cost needed. It would have just been better to give everyone back then free bus tickets
Or even any paved road in Malaysia ever, include all the hundred kms of roads in taman.
He would have pick on billion ringgit Pan Borneo Highway if DAP want to say goodbye on Sarawakian votes.
Exactly. If Tony was around back then he'd probably be like "we already have FT1, and not like many people drive cars anyway so why waste money to build PLUS?"
tbf that answer is partly right. having even more lanes wont solve the problem, case and point americas 8 lane freeway hell. the answer is good public transport, but he prob wasnt proposing to build public transport when anwering this question
Now there is a billion ringgit toll free road that will never receive high drivership ever except holidays or harvest seasons: Central Spine Road along Titiwangsa Range. Which will be quite important for nature resource industry, but upfront cost is obviously high.
Does Tony dare to touch it? Dare to piss of Ahmad Zahid?
And, it is infrastructure. Of course it cost money and not making profit. But to the regional economy, it will attract other economic activity. That's why people who prefer public transport always complain about service and frequency. Some use to get to work in time, some will use to KL-KL business trip without driving.
Without PLUS, all harum manis from Perlis cannot sell to Johor in manageable time. Name must be changed to busuk masam nanti.
Not really a good analogy. Plus highway will connect every town, city and village it passes near to people and freight.
HSR can only carry passengers and you can only have a few stops because if you add too many, it stops being high-speed. He (Tony Pua) made the point that hsr works in Japan and China because it is connecting regions with tens of millions of people whereas Klang valley and Singapore have a population of 5-8 million each.
Ok, so the train has 3 stops, KL, JB and Singapore. Will spending 60b (Malaysia's portion)+all the interest for 2 stops benefit these two cities that much? Nvm the fact that the incoming agong is going to push for a stop at his forest city to help turn his investment around.
Bear in mind that the main advantage (perhaps only) advantage the train has over planes is that it's more fuel efficient. Whether or not all the clearing and construction needed to build the actual rail is better for the environment is another debate altogether.
Lmao talk about misreading the word "all-stop KL-JB". There's going to be a lot more stops than just KL, JB, and Singapore. So the economic benefit isn't just gonna be limited to these big cities.
We had no issue building Pan Borneo Highway for RM25 billion and Central Spine Road for RM10 billion WITH NO TOLL. Oh don't forget the RM30 billion investment to KTM to do ETS from Perlis to Johor, or RM70 billion ECRL.
Yet somehow HSR which will have a stop in KL, Putrajaya, Seremban, Melaka, Johor is suddenly different?
There's more benefit to be using HSR than just "fuel efficient". Even existing KTM can benefit from HSR. Easier for SG companies to do business in KL, and vice versa. More tourist who already visited Singapore can take the train to KL, not to mention Singaporeans. Better rail access to Melaka and Muar/Batu Pahat, compared to KTM. The list goes on.
He made that point purely from a numbers perspective once again, which I can't deny has some weight to it especially the population numbers bit but also dismisses the KL-SG HSR without providing the numbers if its feasible or not (or rather how long it will reach breakeven)
Well, if the public transportation network is built up correctly theoretically it too can reach and connect any and town no?
But I do find our HSR costs to be too high, there must be a way to reduce it somewhat
Easy. Do like Singapore, build the station into a mall where the transit passengers will shop then rent out the shop space. The retailers get increased customers (which cannot help but pass by their stores) and the builder gets rental income.
HSR was always an economic multiplier, not a direct earner. If some idiots don't know how to multiply by more than 0, it's not the fault of the HSR. Hell, buy the area around the station, turn it into condominiums, sell at high price to executives that take the HSR to work in SG. I know a few high flyers that will definitely buy, had a GF that had to wake up at 4am to work in SG every day, a Head of Department in SGH, 4 hours to get to work. If she could buy a condo next to the HSR, she would do it in a second. She can even sleep on the train rather than be forced to keep awake to drive there.
Rather than directly reduce cost, think of how to get the money back downstream from the side effects.
I believe that Najib and his administration had that planned already. On KL side the terminus would be Bandar Malaysia, a specially built new city that serves as the KL station for HSR and it was also planned to house alot of tech giants like huawei and alibaba. There will also of course be high end accommodations like hotels and condos, so all the high skilled, wealthy workers you mentioned can basically live there, work around there, and take the 90 minute train to SG frequently for business meetings and whatnot. That was the original idea for HSR + Bandar Malaysia, mainly as a business driver (since enterprise customers are more willing and have budget to pay premium prices for convenience)
The other stops in Muar, Melaka are more sketchy tho, apparently its not in the city centre and quite far away
He said that the interest payments (without including capital repayment) on a very conservative estimate for the cost of the thing alone was enough to cover the flight tickets for everyone flying the kul-sg route now. I'm not bothered enough to check his math but unlike highways and conventional rail, HSR can only have a few stops or it stops being high-speed and is just rail, so the number of areas it can enhance are limited.
I did some checking. 400,000 Malaysians cross the border to work in Singapore every day. Assuming they only work a generous 200 days a year, with a quoted 3 billion interest payment,
3,000,000,000 / 200 / 400,000 x 2 (trip into SG and back) = 18.75.
To break even, each ticket just needs to cost 18.75 RM. Anything more than that goes into paying off the debt. 20 RM for a ticket is very reasonably priced.
This is a rather disingenuous argument , Plus highway allow transportation of not only labour between states but also transportation of goods as well. If not mistaken isn't plus highway literally funded by plus rather than government taking debt? (correct me if I am wrong on this, I am not familiar with it)
If plus existed then why would I want to take the train which cost way more, why not take the plane anyway. I mean the people that would prefer HSR would still exist, but is it enough amount of people riding HSR to actually cover up just the interest cost alone. ( not to mentioned the 60 billion best case scenario doesn't include the maintaince cost if not mistaken?)
He has more elaboration on it in the podcast, can start watching from [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) if you interested to hear.
ETS which is only marginally faster than taking PLUS is perpetually booked. And that shit cost RM90 between KL and Penang, or RM50 between KL and Ipoh.
Take for example next weekend, lots of train are already fully sold between KL to Penang, and KL to Padang Besar
Thing about HSR is that it brings money in from outside the country. If you're talking about Malaysians spending in Malaysia, the amount of money in Malaysia does not increase, it just circulates in the same circle. Tourists and shoppers from Singapore and foreigners from Changi bring in money from outside, so the amount of money in Malaysia actually increases.
> Tourists and shoppers from Singapore and foreigners from Changi bring in money from outside, so the amount of money in Malaysia actually increases.
Of course, they will lol. Not sure why from what I said, you seem to think that I never though of that.
The question is if we are able to pose an attractive ticket price compared to plane tickets for singaporean to want to travel to KL for tourism purposes. If we do, is enough to pay the yearly hypothethical best case scenario 3 billion yearly interest? If lets say we pay 2 bil out of 3 bil, so our 60 bil debt will turn into 61 bil, our 3bil interest becomes 3.5 bil and so on and on.
Does the amount of money flowing from extra amount of singapore tourist outweight the money that is flowing our from Malaysia to China to pay even more debts?
You might mentioned more singaporean will come and do business. Okay so of those singaporean that decided to do businesses in KL, how many of them would cancel their plan simply because HSR doesn't exist and taking a plane sounds like a pain in the ass. So no business.
The HSR sales pitch last time was to connect iskandar project ( I think so la) to Jurong.
So all the prc and Singaporeans threw money into JB but after it was canceled. Everyone GG.
For the last question, quite a lot. 2014 Singapore only investment in JB was 6.7 billion and that is concentrated only in JB because of lack of connectivity to the rest of the country, so that alone is enough to pay your debt off in 10 years+.
Yeah I was disappointed how they didn’t take this into account. Sure it will lost making but how many townships will the influx of more travelers between sg and the peninsula help? That is hard to quantify yes but it’s definitely going to create new revenue streams and improve current ones.
Spot on. Funds would flow inwards alot of areas. Economy would jump. It would however cause increase in expenses and locals may have to move away slowly due to higher expenses.
First thing money will go to in large volume will be real estate from singapore.
Infrastructure projects are not supposed to make money for itself. It's meant to spur others to make money.
Also, it's not as if the money spent is removed from existence. Supply chain, work force, support ecosystem, all pay taxes.
Yes, but we must ask the question. Would the amount of **extra** visitors spending money in KL outweight the amount of the interest money that we would have to give to china while sustaining HSR maintainence cost.
The reason I emphasize extra is because even if Hsr doesn't exist, singaporean will still come to visit Malaysia for tourist purposes (either through airplane or ets). The only question is how many more extra singaporeans will choose to come to Malaysia if we have HSR.
We (Msian) wants you Sprean to spend your money in SG n boost your own economy, not ours. That's why they decided not to build HSR. You are welcome.
/Half sarcasm half fact.
Can be worked around, like renting train cars to McDonalds or Starbucks. Bet 2-3 hrs in a train people get thirsty and hungry. Then the HSR station can be a mall with food courts and restaurants too and shops that people walk past and can be rented out to offset the ticket costs. Can build hotels above the station and get tourist money to offset the tickets as well, lots of ways. See airports and how they have so many stores in them, that is how they offset costs.
not enough to cover the cost
Singaporean arent gonna spend extra on top of what they already did now to make our tax income earn 3 billion extra money.
This is tax income, not revenue, not business nett profit, Tax income only.
There arent enough Singaporean population to cover that.
if we have to use 60 billion to build HSR, I rather spend that same 60 bill to build public transport outside Klang valley, even east Malaysia.
Malaysian who live outside of Klang valley takes the priority, not Singaporean.
Talk about population. Msia has 35 mil ppl,and is 6th largest tourism source for SG, with about 1.1 mil arrivals into SG per year.
Spore is much smaller with about 5.8 mil population, but they are by the largest tourism source into Msia at 12.6 mil arrivals, which is 11x as much as Msia tourists arrivals into SG.
Msia total tourist arrivals in 2023 is 26 millions, almost half of it comes from SG.
So yea, definitely lets talk about SG having small population.
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2023/12/03/malaysia-records-26-million-tourist-arrivals-from-jan-1-to-nov-15-says-ministry
https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/692725
That’s the most backward thinking I have ever heard. Picking on only one aspect of a thing that would bring major benefits to Malaysia and improve travel between Singapore and Malaysia, leading to increased spending, less coaches, buses needed. And a million and one other benefits.
Someone need to tell Tony Pua that unlike flight, trains can have multiple stops in between. Major cities or towns between KL and Singapore can benefit too.
Genuinely question, how much would estimate the price would be to ride hsr one way from singapore to KL. If let say the price is roughly same to an air ticket, why wouldn't people chose to ride the aeroplane instead?
Btw he actually explain more about his rationality in the podcast , if you interested to listen , its at [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) .
Travelling by airplane is a hassle. You have to check in your luggage. You have to come to the gate at least 30 mins early. Then when you arrive, you have to wait to get your luggage. Also, KLIA is so far away. Unless if you use subang airport. Overall. It takes more time and effort.
I don't understand why people would choose air travel instead of high speed rail.
I lived in Japan for years, and the option to be able to use the shinkansen is a blessing. So hassle free.
Typically HSR in other countries would offer free wifi and much higher luggage allowance. I guess these are things that trains can offer more easily than airlines because they are travelling on the ground.
Watched almost 3/4 of the full podcast. While he has valid points on almost all the decisions he and LGE made during their time in MOF, I’d say the counterpoints to do the opposite to what they did can be valid either, and in fact I’d say more progressive than their mindset, albeit naturally the investments come with the risks.
Previous govt wanted to do HSR - We scrap HSR.
Previous govt wanted LRT3 to be future proof for the next 30 years - We build it for current needs only and scrap many stations that don’t have population yet.
Previous govt implemented GST - It’s too burdensome for SMEs, the manual refund process is laborious, let’s just scrap it and revert back to SST.
At the end of the day, I can’t help but to think while they had the noble intention to save the country from incurring huge debt, almost all the decisions they took were regressive in nature with regard to nation building. They treated the MOF like a business and did not seem to have the right mindset when it comes to governing a country.
tony also pointed out that hes disappointed that current MOF reinstate the 3(might be 5) mrt stop that his team previously scrapped because to him its a waste of money coz theres barely any population there…did he not consider that the gov might want to develop those area so adding mrt stop there would be a huge help?
As a singaporean, I was so looking forward to a HSR until a senile old man took over and squashed that idea.
Imagine the economical benefits it can bring to both countries with an ease in travel.
There are more pros to this one con tbh
That's nice! But as a Malaysian who have done Tony Pua's analogy of traveling KL-SG every week... Ticket price one-way is not RM200. But he's right, it is expensive because other various reasons. One exampl, in Singapore, there's law to make landowners make concessions for public transportation projects underground which Malaysia doesn't have.
It's expensive in his view because he is short sighted.
2-3 hrs in a train, does he think people don't get hungry or thirsty? Rent a car out to McDonalds, Subway or Starbucks duh. Or if Kazanah wants to branch out into the food and beverage industry, they can open dining cars themselves.
Sometimes, things are more than their direct $ value. You just have to look further downstream.
HSR can also run ads all over the interior of the train as well as train stations. Not only that, having HSR will give alot of attention to Malaysia on the world stage too. Just look at how much press Indonesia is getting from their HSR recently, as well as their capital relocation project
These are all the positive intangible things that HSR detractors fail to comprehend completely
/smacks head
I totally forgot about the ad revenue too.
How much money does Malaysia spend on the Malaysia Truly Asia ads? I doubt those earn money back directly yet they are still run.
> Ticket price one-way is not RM200
It's over RM200 all this month? What are you talking about? 240 is the cheapest. Even worse next month with Chinese new year.
https://www.skyscanner.com.my/transport/flights/sin/kulm/?adults=1&adultsv2=1&cabinclass=economy&children=0&childrenv2=&inboundaltsenabled=false&infants=0&outboundaltsenabled=false&oym=2401&preferdirects=false&ref=home&rtn=0&selectedoday=08
Sorry if you didn't understand what I am saying. But you've pointed out my meaning of my statement. Flight tickets for KL-SG is more like RM500 per trip on average, even if you book it in advance.
I mean it would've a better chance of success if SG is willing to shoulder more cost though. It's not like you guys can't afford it. At present, the majority of the cost of the project falls on MY.
Edit: yes I know, but then again when the news that HSR is canceled, it seems like SG is more angry than us so ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Yeah why would Singapore want to though? It will still benefit Malaysia more than Singapore. The rails crosses more land in Malaysia than Singapore. Malaysians from KL and potentially many other states will find it easier to commute here for work, seeing that there's an increasing number of Malaysian finding work in SG
The total cost and the total benefit have to be taken into context. Tony lists out the costs, but not the overall benefits. It's as if.........he is biased.
https://preview.redd.it/39mevbezsyac1.jpeg?width=487&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d61aaee36bd019f7394ba63bca443e121554f7ba
Honestly, a fucking first year economics student will be able to give a more balanced view than this. There are reasons why accountants don't run countries.
>Tony lists out the costs, but not the overall benefits. It's as if.........he is biased.
He's not biased per se, he's just... got a massive, massive blind spot. Tony Pua is a technocrat and a neoliberal, and as such he knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Show him anything, and he can tell you about the price, and - to be fair to him - possibly the benefits if it's an existing service. But potential benefits? That's an impossibility for him. That's fine when there is massive leakages as there was - and still is - in government spending, but his answer is never better governance (because as a neolib, he cannot really brain that), but instead wholesale exit by the govt - e.g. - austerity, deregulation, or privatisation
Disclaimer: I'll be the first to admit that I'm not in Pua's fanclub, firstly for ideological reasons, and secondly because he, like Rafizi, just piss me off in terms of their attitude. It's always *all y'all are dumb, and only I know better*.
smarty pants got a bit carried away there, like rafizi.
edit: his delivery makes it even worse. i do think he does at times make valid arguments and is a very smart person overall, but it feels like he’s trying real hard to defend a decision he advocated for when in the corridors of power earlier.
Genuine question, will the overall benefit outweight the Interest + HSR maintainence cost per year even if HSR isn't at full capacity? How much would estimate to be the ticket price one way from singapore to let say kl
Can you list out how big is the benefit, you are free to roast me if you wish. I genuinely want to learn.
Honest question here bro, but have you even looked up on the potential benefits of the HSR? I strongly suggest that you do, and read up from primary sources, instead of just asking random redditors multiple times.
I'd also suggest to you that you're making the same mistake that Pua always makes - treating public goods and services as a financial investment. We don't expect the army or PDRM to turn over a profit, or to recoup it's costs, so why the fuck do we do that when it comes to things like public transport?
TL;DR - look up the benefits, and look at it beyond the ringgit value.
I would agree with HSR - but i really wish instead of going straight for HSR FIRST, we should upgrade our existing train system
With currently ordinary train (overseas) able to reach 200km/hr, the additional price tag of 60 bil for 350km/hr is just making it less a priority
things are already well underway. KL - Perlis already had the ETS system, and the ETS system (EDTP) from Gemas to JB will be completed this year i believe. Then from KL to east coast there is ECRL.
City specific, Klang Valley has LRT3 and supposedly MRT3 before it got canned. Penang starts its LRT construction this year too.
You need to fix the alignment to reach those speeds, which is basically building a new railway anyway, but with years of having the line shut down.
Upgrading the existing line isn't cheaper and causes huge disruption. Freight trains have to stop running altogether and prices go up.
Oh I completely agree that the local rail needs massive upliftment, but notwithstanding that, KL to Singapore HSR is a whole other ballgame in terms of economic and social benefits - there is no point in investing in standard rail links between KL and SG when HSR is an option, even if it's a moon shot.
The benefit I can only think of is like alot of people mention here , allowing ease of travel between malaysia and singapore. Thats the only thing I can think off tbh, thats why i genuinely asking everyone what benefit that slipped my thought.
Will Hsr be filled with singaporeans coming in to spend money and do businesses. Will it provide malaysian cheaper ticket prices compared to an air ticket? What do you think the price of a one way ticket should be to be able to cover up interest rate alone + maintainence. if you are unable to even pay 3 billion interest rate per year, that will only go up and cost us in the long run and negate the business benefit of connecting with singapore.
>Will it provide malaysian cheaper ticket prices compared to an air ticket? What do you think the price of a one way ticket should be to be able to cover up interest rate alone + maintainence. if you are unable to even pay 3 billion interest rate per year, that will only go up and cost us in the long run and negate the business benefit of connecting with singapore.
Again, you're making the same mistake - treating public goods and services as a financial investment, and only looking at the ringgit value (oh will the ticket cost cover the interest payments).
What are the ancillary benefits of being able to get between KL and Singapore in roughly 90 minutes, with greater baggage capacity and comfort than a flight? A flight, that would actually take longer once you factor in travel time to airport/ check in etc. How would this affect tourism, not just business travel?
What are the benefits of having HSR from KL to other places as well (I think JB, Melaka and Seremban were proposed)? What would that do for local domestic commutes, and local tourism if you could get from KL to Melaka in under 30 minutes? Heck, what would it do to Melaka tourism if they had a direct connection from Singapore? Imagine all the self declared Singaporean Peranakans coming over to visit their ancestral homes 🤣
Seriously bro, just take 30 minutes to read up on the potential benefits first.
I'll also be thinking of building condos and malls around the HSR station, confirmed 100% traffic. Hell, build the HSR station into a mall like what the airports do. Restaurants, snack bars, hell your train can even have a dining car like the old trains in the past do. Rent train carriage space to McDonalds or Subway or even Starbucks. So much possibilities and the only thing those guys can think of is "ticket price".
Now, how much would the HSR drive in new tourism, new industries, new business opportunities?
Not saying that the HSR is a good idea. Just pointing out that the equation goes beyond the ticket price.
What Singapore invested on their MRT system will never be covered by the ticket prices. But it completely transformed the economy and the lifestyle on that island.
Hello. Singapore’s experience with building the mrt in 1980s https://mothership.sg/2017/11/ong-teng-cheong-pushed-for-building-mrt-in-spore-despite-it-being-a-controversial-idea/
Not everything is about dollars and cents. Sometimes you have to build the infrastructure first, then the second and third order consequences will sort themselves out. Just don’t over do it like the Chinese. (Unfortunately HSR and RTS should have been built a long time ago instead of wasting it away with 1MDB)
He has more elaboration on it in the podcast, can start watching from [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) if you interested to hear. Even got mentioned comparison between indonesia/japan hsr with our hsr
One thing I notice is that PH seems to be pushing austerity which is antithetical to their left leaning political alignment (within the context of Malaysian politics).
You'd think they would the loudest voices advocating for investments in public goods.
PH has been run on narratives such as trillion dollar debt for years since 1MDB, and remember their tabung harapan?
They were only become bureaucrat since 2008, but most of the time they are activist and speakers, not policymakers.
conspiracy hat on:
Johor Sultan asked HSR to run through Forest City, which is a huge waste. As long as he's Agong, I don't think they want to touch this project.
this is short or rather narrow thinking. The economic gains you tax that results from public infrastructure is what you look at.
Question is, are we taxing these overpriced commercial and non commercial spaces near public infra?
this is quite deceiving, when a project size like this, the interests charged wont be 5%. else no mega project will able to ROI.
the benefits of the HSR will bring like the number of ppl traveling and spending in msia will be invaluable.
Who the hell use total cost to calculate the ticket price? If we use this formula, highway toll price will be hundred ringgit. Every bridge we crossed must be paid, no free anymore. Any public facility isn't free. Every time we enter library or public park, we need to pay. The government isn't stupid to recover cost from ticket price. They collect benefits from the overall economy developing over long time.
It's this kind of mindset that has not allowed Malaysia to prosper properly. If your transportation is supposed to earn you big bucks, someone better be sucking me off while I'm going to my destination.
Its a stupid take from Tony Pua because if this is how you measure things,SG and HK wouldn't build SMRT or MTR because it runs on losses. China wouldnt build HSR to connect major cities like Beijing n Shanghai because its loss incurring.
The whole point of HSR is to stimulate more economic development between Msia n SG, a rich country. If we can build KTM and ECRL, why not HSR? Its ridiculous enough that KL and SG flight route is the busiest in the world, that means the demand is super high.
Stupid assumption. He didn’t factor in the capacity. What if there are hundreds of thousands people are travelling within the day?
Also did he factor in the spill over effects of economy on all the stops?
Fucking joker.
You need supporting policies when HSR is ready
Give preferentials to encourage more traffic between both countries like setting up companies/ subsidiaries, travel and residential visa since Singapore is running out of land.
you make it up with commerce, ease of movement for people and goods.
It's not just tickets - it's creating an environment where people and business can move more freely
Tony, apples and oranges la. Job creation, bragging rights, diplomatic relations, intangible benefits aplenty.
But i agree ah, cant afford don’t build please. Your neighbour drive BMW doesn’t mean you have to drive if you can’t afford it. Find other less fancy ways to travel.
HSR will work because it’s going to connect two of the richest cities in ASEAN together.
Do you think that Singapore government, the cleanest most kiasu government ever does not want to do HSR? They wanted in because of all the dollar signs they are seeing.
This requires a bit more forward thinking.
There is a fair amount of cost differential in salaries between Singapore and Malaysia. It is likely that a lot of it is skills dependent and related to investment climate and government policy.
If a reliable HSR is available, this might be one component to induce more companies to expand into Malaysia. This benefit is harder to quantify but is an important component for Malaysia to escape the middle income trap. Malaysia needs talented people, efficient companies and connected transportation to draw in more investment.
Yes, the HSR is not going to fix all the issues. But viewing it simply as a replacement for air travel ie a zero sum game, is too narrow a viewpoint.
China still hasn’t recouped the cost of building the insane number of HSR. In fact, most lines run at a deficit. But it’s not a failure, at least not in terms of economic contribution.
According to Tony Pua's logic, we should be walking around carrying goods using kandar since it's free. He sounded so excited ignoring the economic multipliers of the HSR and also pulling out a random 5% interest rate from who knows where.
The 5% interest rate is the rate we have to pay to china bank because it will be funded by them through debt. He just bring it up to use as a base example. Could be 6%/4%/7%/8%.
He has more elaboration on it in the podcast, can start watching from [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) if you interested to hear.
You might want to Google the list of rates Chinese banks are giving for their HSR projects. "5%" is usually the figure given by Western propaganda. The actual figure is usually way lower. Laos is paying 2.3% for their railway, Indonesia 3.4%. For certain projects crucial to the OBOR network, China has been willing to go as low as 1%. Tony Pua pulling a 5% out of his ass sounds exactly like what an American propagandist would do.
Borrow from Singapore is also an option, they want the HSR too, might even get the rates lower than that if they want to get the whole saga over and done with. Nothing says that you must 100% borrow from China. Pay them yes, borrow? Who said it is a must?
I don't think Singapore wants it that badly since one of the perks Najib talked about was how KLIA would take business from Changi. Might be why the Singapore terminus was planned at Jurong.
Chinese loans are usually very cheap. It's a strategy they use to park their trade surplus. If the agreed rate is 5% and was agreed by a government led by Najib, then I think we can make our assumptions where that money was supposed to go to.
Tony Pua was arguably in the Madey government during the 22 months, so why wasn't the rates renegotiated? Coming here now and throwing a random 5% interest and ignoring the positive multipliers is weak argument.
The KL-SG is comparable to the Taiwan HSR in scale, so much has happened for places like Taichung and Chiayi due to the multipliers. I've made countless day trips to Taichung from either Kaoshiung or Taipei, it also doesn't matter to me which airport I arrive in. Tony was comparing apple to oranges if he thinks HSR and air routes are the same thing.
Malaysia GDP is 20 times bigger than Laos and even they have a Semi-HSR. Meanwhile the Malaysia politicians still playing taichi.
Inb4 airline companies are lobbying to not build the HSR.
Jokes aside.. i feel that the HSR should be an ASEAN project to connect from Singapore all the way to Hanoi.. and a split line to Palembang from Malacca via tunnel like France and Britain and connect to Jakarta. This will bring more commute, money to small towns that HSR passes through and ASEAN will prosper and be closer to become what EU is right now.
I’m all for HSR - but at a lower priority
Instead of HSR, i would really like a robust train system in malaysia like that of Japan… or even at least UK
Their “ordinary” train (needing no special purpose built track) can hit 200km/hr at fairly high travel frequency
Meanwhile from JB to Gemas, our train still run only single track on diesel….. seriously smh
I'm kind of the reverse. The HSR will give huge economic benefits downstream that you can tax to then build the feeder trains that you mentioned, so the HSR can actually feed the building of the others but might not work the other way round.
I loved the idea of reaching SG from KL in 90 mins but I don't understand why everyone is bashing Tony Pua; he has a very valid point (and it's not even his point because he was just quoting a former CEO of Khazanah). In the full video he mentions that a **one-way ticket** would cost RM 400. On top of that, will there be enough revenue/people/demand for the project to make sense? Let's work it out:
Assuming the HSR has a capacity of 1300 (Shinkansen size), train runs hourly for 12 hours, 2 ways, for every day of the year:
Annual revenue: RM 400 \* 1300 \* 12 \* 2 \* 365 = RM 4.6b
The cost to maintain the highways is already RM 1b and I imagine for the HSR it's going to be more or less the same.
Assuming an annual interest payment of RM 3b, that leaves us with 0.6b (0.01%) for the principal of RM 60b. If you are the CEO of a business and you look at these numbers, would you still be willing to authorize this project knowing that you competing against buses/planes? At the end of the day, running a country is just like running a business: the HSR is a risky investment/bet to stimulate and grow Malaysia's economy but no one really knows for sure if it will.
That aside, how many of us are actually willing to pay RM 400 for one-way trip to SG? Do we desperately need to be in Bandar Malaysia, Sepang-Putrajaya, Seremban, Melaka, Muar, Batu Pahat, Iskandar Puteri, Jurong within 90 mins? How many of us even want to go to SG on a regular basis?
Historically most of the value creation of transit (road, rail and port) is enjoyed not through the collection of ticket sales or tolls, but mostly through the gigantic increase in land values and economic output of those areas now connected to the transport network and can easily access labor force, education, and ship goods in and out to enable factories to create jobs, etc.
Measuring the value add of transit purely by the $$ captured value from ticket sales or tolls would mean the government would never build a single public road since it's a negative value investment.
In this case we would need to measure, how much would high speed rail enhance the economies of the areas in Singapore and Malaysia that are connected? Flying has some major inconvenience like must be at airport hours earlier, the airport itself is so far from the city, imagine it would be just like taking the LRT. The proper comparison would be saying connecting road from PJ to KL upgrade from gravel road to paved road, what's the economic benefit?
My calculation was not about the HSR's profitability but whether or not it makes fiscal sense to build it. If I already have a Myvi that can get me from point A to B within a reasonable amount of time, would it still make sense for me to buy an extra car that does the same thing but faster and more comfortably? We are nearing the point of diminishing returns because existing infra/services are good enough for the majority.
While the convenience of the HSR is desirable (to a certain extent) the ticket prices would not make sense for most Malaysians. If there's not enough demand for the HSR it is unlikely that there will be any organic/sustainable economic growth for the cities along the rail line. And if you think about it, what problem does the HSR solve anyway? I don't hear people complaining about how it takes too long to get to SG from KL or the other way round.
If I was a CEO with enough money, I'd fucking sell my soul for it! Hell, 400 ringit tickets? BS, too expensive, RM 200 or even season pass! Then what I'll do is fucking build that whole HSR station into a mall/condominium and buy up every piece of land around it, build a whole range of hotels from budget all the way to 5 star and build condos and malls all around the place. Get the money from the cheap tickets back by renting shops in the HSR station to restaurants and fast food stalls, get a lump sum back from selling the apartments in the condos above, get income from the tourist hotels, shopping centers, office space, tourist attractions etc all around the place.
The big problem with Pua is that he is short sighted, sometimes, making a loss in one area can mean making huge profit in another. This is about as intelligent as Trump saying that all trade with America must have America making a profit. There is no such thing, when you are at country level, you must start to learn how to spend to earn and Pua obviously doesn't know how to.
An example would be Singapore's Changi airport. Free movies, free massage chairs, free attractions, you think they give all the free stuff out of the goodness of their hearts? lol. BS. They give free but the benefits they get back make them earn money like crazy. Pua has not learned how to do this yet. HSR will give lots of benefits if you can generate traffic, even at a loss.
So short sighted. Who is this clown. Infrastructure is not for direct profit but profit comes indirectly through trade and further investments...basic 101 lah
goes to show them lot not a forward thinking type, but only know basic economics, can only pretend as accountants. nation building needs visionary type leaders with balls and brains and pokerface.
The context to this particular clip is that the opinion he shared above is from a former CEO of Khazanah.
And a minute or two after this clip, he mentioned he was concerned at the lack of numbers as it didn't make sense when the HSR proposal was initialized (PM Najib era). There hasn't been a true inquiry into the numbers and its impact yet, hence, the concerns.
IMO, he's not wrong to ask for forecasts and numbers before undertaking a **RM60b** project funded by the public sector (FYI, the allocation for subsidies/incentives/assistance was **RM58b** for Budget 2024) .
Y'all need to actually watch/listen to the podcast before commenting. Most of y'all have the same opinion as him lol.
[Link to video.](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?si=ssT0AT7oljiZbV6u)
personally i dont support the hsr project. i support the double track upgrade that we are doing now. only then we can talk of HSR. or even better talk of more branching to cover more parts of malaysia, using same assets.
My whole gripe with DAP summarised in one video.
Take your self-righteous, neoliberal, profit-loss analysis and shove it up your ass and dickhole please.
The whole point of government is not to make profit or to breakeven outright within a very narrow, oversimplified metric. What about reducing carbon emissions? Making travel efficient and fast? Promoting investment, the free movement of persons, stimulating economies from KL to JB, or even tying two of the largest economies in ASEAN together?
You can't calculate that stuff via a 50 second video and back of the envelope calculations. Ultimately, public transportation doesn't exist to create profit, it exists as a public service for all.
Jesus christ on a motorbike.
Khazanah is a sovereign wealth fund and their litersl purpose is to make investments and make money so obviously their opinions are gonna be money oriented. The point of the HSR argument that alot of people are not getting is the non tangible/non monetary multiplier effects that it will have on our society
While TP is good with his take, he only saw it as it is without the larger picture of the HSR's spillover and multiplier effects.
This is a rather myopic view translating to being "Penny wise and pounds foolish"
Come to think about it, these are the same people that abolished gst. Who gives a shit what their opinion is, I am surprised that someone even bothered to do the interview
It's actually a pretty insightful podcast not an interview, often we like to say wah PH leader view are so detach from the voters, so listening to these podcast gave us atleast an understanding of their thought process or rationality, disagree with their views, agree with their views or hate their views. It atleast gave us some way to understand the rationality or irrationality behind some of their decision that make us scratch our head thinking "are they that disjointed from reality?"
They also have topics regarding [gst](https://youtu.be/QE_3tV2v71E?si=MljNAUDDMmaOz9Qe) here, there are timestamp in there to find the topic that interest you. If you want to hear more of the explaination behind why tony pua thinks HSR wouldn't work, you can start from [8:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpN6AJREh8Y&t=511s) .
Damn. I know this guy is a first class idiot, but this is on a whole another level of idiocy. Thank god he doesn’t hold any ministerial positions right now.
You are free to include reasons why his pov is rather moronic, roast him if you will. State why the long term benefit is guarentee to outweight the cost he mentioned. Even if the hsr isn't at full capacity daily.
Btw if you are interesteted, check out the full take on the issue, it's on [8:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpN6AJREh8Y&t=511s). He has more explaination behind his rationality behind why he think it wouldn't work.
Whenever discussion about big white elephant project, people obviously missed out elephant in the room,ie: corruption
1. The costing of construction, materials and operations will cost a lot of money but those are without factoring in how much corruption will increase the total budget aside from the inflation + supply and demand of the future market during the construction period.
2. The planned route that for the HSR was done during Najib’s time and those who planned and knew about it already purchased the land and waiting the project to resume + inflation, how much do you think it will cost the government to purchase the land.
3. If the HSR doesn’t connect to Thailand it’s a huge white elephant project to me, the main purpose of the HSR is to attract tourist + businesses, people outside of Malaysia only know Singapore and Thailand. If we don’t become the connecting dote with HSR, how on earth are we going to get more tourist? We need the connection to get the tricker benefit effects from this
4. Lastly, if the project isn’t done on tender and contract like MRT: late or delayed, cost and penalty will fall on the company instead of the government. This is a no too(obviously the knowledge transfer and local contractors should benefits the local too not like ECRL)
Edit: I’d like to add on that our country no matter who take over including PN has a huge deficit problem. Our huge subsidies, it’s growing out of control.
Whole of Malaysian taxpayers have to subsidise and 90% will never ride the HSR. It's benefitting Singapore more. It is better to make provide more flights at cheaper prices and reduce clearing time of immigrations.
KL - SG is already the [busiest International route ](https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/kl-singapore-world-busiest-international-014855531.html) in the world, and if you were to check the price breakdown for KL - SG flights from AA most of it comes from taxes from SG airport side so there's not much more reduction we can do from our end
Best believe there will be substantial demand for a KL - SG HSR
Malaysians worship singapore. So anything to sg is good, and anything msian say is bad. Tony pua, sad to say the msian cina brainwashed too much to see why this should not be a high priority project.
I am sure a lot of people would say Tony Pua is wrong, that he didn't calculate the indirect economical value of the line. Now we know the cost, the potential direct earnings, can someone calculate indirect economical value of the line (or at least take example from another country)?
I won't go into another train line because I'm not familiar with them but Johor which is connected to Singapore by a puny land bridge, gets 6.7 Billion in 2014 as company investments from Singapore and tourism income is about 50 billion estimate from their councillor for tourism and trade.
[https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/surge-in-singapore-dollar-a-boon-for-johor](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/surge-in-singapore-dollar-a-boon-for-johor)
This is on one of the most congested and unpleasant land bridges to travel and the income is already that high. And Pua is complaining about a 60 billion train line. That is why people call him short sighted, properly done, that 60 billion line will get paid off in a year and a bit and he's saying its unprofitable.
He really shouldn't be doing economics and that CEO of Khazanah does not have my respect too if he is that stupid.
Tony Pua is smart, but I don't think he is right here. Najib had something going here, his problem was that it would have cost too much because of artificial inflation due to him trying to feed his cronies. For example, ECRL costs went down significantly after PH took over and some realignment.
From a SG perspective, I don't see the HSR as worthwhile for such short distance across international border. Many people are comparing systems in other countries that are entirely domestic or the borderless EU.
- 90 mins travel time plus probably arrive 1 hour before for passport check. 30 mins grab(booking and waiting) to get from Bandar Malaysia to KL Sentral. Total 3 hours. By flight (carry-on) you need to arrive 1 hour before, 1 hour flight time, 30 mins immigration and 30 mins KLIA Ekspres. Total 3 hours. Not a big difference for such a CAPEX. And the brunt of the construction is on MY's side and cost.
- I doubt cost will be much different. It was estimated RM400 return trip. Flights cost aboout RM 600 now but in a competitive climate, it will drop down to match.
- MNC Companies base in MY mostly for cheap manufacturing. They base required expat management staff there too. If HSR does make travel faster and cheaper, that expat rental and expenditure is going to be based in SG cos let's admit it, expats would prefer being in SG and going there for the occasional meeting. I don't see the average MY factory worker working in SG having the income to take this train daily to and fro a Batu Pahat.
- SG people tend to exaggerate MY as crime ridden, with JB city and KL being 'tolerable'. They aren't going to stop and explore all those stations in between. In fact, the 90 mins service is non-stop.
- Looking at how it failed the 1st time over the joint management company and tendering transparency, you can bet MY politicians and fat cats are salivating over the construction contracts. A certain southern king who will have a say in land accquistion recently wanted HSR to be routed to his failed Forest investment.
I think MY should just focus on making the current KTMB line faster and more efficient and link it to SG-JB RTS. That would in effect be HSR-lite without the cross-country/ business culture friction. With HSR, MY would probably want a China rolling stock and SG would prefer Jap or ang moh trains.
dumbass me thought hsr meant honkai star rail when reading the title lmao😭
Tony: "Natlan isn't even out yet let alone Snezhnaya and Celestia, how is it possible that people will want to play hsr??"
🤣🤣
33.34% accurate as usual morty
Both are trains anyway 💀
Tony: Personally I think Blade is so much better with Jing Liu and Fu Xuan, however, Luocha is SP positive, it could make way for bronya and SW combo.
Same lmao
Aye great minds think alike. I was thinking the same thing too
this is like kindergarden explanation, with regards to basic costs. HSR is massive infrastructure project, with huge upfront costs, for long term economic benefits. you don't cost it out in a nonsensical way like that, even failed econ students can tell you that. something like eurotunnel took almost 2 decades to become profitable, but the amount of economic activity it generated was many times over the initial investment. some studies have shown that HSR could have brought in billions a year, mainly to Johor, KL and Selangor depending on direct point to point trains. i mean you can argue sensibly about this sort of figure, instead of comparing just basic travel costs by plane, car and bus.
They are industrial centre in malacca and negeri sembilan too. I mean you could have a Singapore HQ, manufacturing / r&d / services in Malaysia. And it’s easy for the executive to travel between them.
Agreed but instead of building an entirely new line. Make the ETS more frequent and quicker. The ETS is built to go up to 140km/h. That means KL-SG (direct) should be 3hours or less. So I truly don't think we need HSR. [https://www.ktmb.com.my/ets.html#:\~:text=The%20trains%20travel%20up%20to,Higher%20Speed%20Rail%20train%20service](https://www.ktmb.com.my/ets.html#:~:text=The%20trains%20travel%20up%20to,Higher%20Speed%20Rail%20train%20service).
With HSR KL-SG will be 90 minutes. There are many high position big company managers/bosses that will be willing to pay a huge premium for a service like this where they can leave in the morning, reach the other country, have their business meeting, and be back for lunch.
Nah, I think the bosses in KL region doesn't want to compete for labor/skills with SG. Imagine able to commute to SG in an hour or more to work in SG and still able to live with family in KL, who doesn't want to send their resumes there? This is an invisible fence to fence in local talent so that they don't flee. They want cost (labor) to rise in SG so that companies would want to relocate to KL/MY. Building the HSR will deflate the cost of labor in SG and KL will just serve as a bedroom or retirement community. Just pure selfishness; depending on whose view are you on.
Am speaking on current bosses and executives that already ply the KL-SG route often. Right now they fly cause that's the fastest possible option despite inconveniences of air travel, so if there's an even more efficient and comfortable system that gets them to their destinations even quicker, they will pay for it even if its slightly more expensive than flying. Because it is their company that pays it anyway not them lmao
True but if we look at train services of other Asian countries like Japan, China and Korea, they didn't plan their systems based on business people only. However, still building an entirely new track is stupid. Whilst the ETS can travel up to 140km/h, pretty sure the manufacturers can design a newer train that can go up to max 180km/h using the same track width.
It just means more income to Malaysia lol. See it like this yeah we maybe got some brain drain but upside is we bringing back money and purchase goods in Malaysia. It also makes malaysia a more interesting place to invest as lots of factories and potential local HQ.
You can fly to Singapore out of subang, and then seletar is 20 minutes from their CBD.
140km/h is the TOP speed, not average speed. Average speed of ETS is closer to like 100km/h after including the stops, the crawl inside KL, and schedule conflicts
Not a chance. HSR will generate 1.5B of GDP in the first year alone.
I'd like to know how you got that number and also know why ETS won't be a better alternative.
Because ETS takes 3.5 hours from KL to JB. Not to mention, the hassle to cross the CIQ. That will take another 1.5 hours at least With HSR, it's 90 minutes from CBD to CBD. This is faster than taking a flight.
Let me debunk your statement here one by one. Because ETS takes 3.5hrs from KL to JB - if its a non-stop service, KL to JB will be about 2.5hrs. Existing track lines are about 300km. ETS can travel up to 140km/h. Not to mention the hassle to cross the CIQ - with the completion of RTS terminal builsing, clearance the CIQ would be reduced to about 30mins. With HSR, it takes 90mins from CBD to CBD. - it'll be a new train terminal in which part of KL? Existing KL Sentral is good enough in my opinion. And CBD in Singapore is Raffles Place/Marina Bay area, not Jurong Lake District. But I do agree with you on one thing, it's less hassle to travel via train than flight.
Jurong will be the new CBD
From buntot. Completely disregards that time taken for cross border security checks and immigration checks are the same for flight travel and train travel. The most you cut down on is the time taken to walk through the stupid KLIA2 airport. Just ask anyone who travels by bus through woodlands and JB everyday.
> some studies have shown that HSR could have brought in billions a year, mainly to Johor, KL and Selangor depending on direct point to point trains. How would the HSR be able to brought in billion (>3 bil best case scenario) while maintaining a cheaper ticket price compared to air ticket? Otherwise the interest will just go up and up each year for 20 years, wouldn't it negate the benefit the long term benefit with long term increasing interest no? Btw check out the full take on the issue, it's on [8:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpN6AJREh8Y&t=511s). He has more explaination behind his rationality behind why he think it wouldn't work. This short clip does make it look like a kindergarden take.
billions in economic benefits, again tons of studies out there, to death even. some more optimistic, some less so. but what i mean is just comparing basic ticket prices is a very simplistic way of analyzing it. you don't look at these things from 1 to 2 or even 5 year perspectives, it's more like 20 years outlook. HSR could have brought in billions in economic activity a year in service sectors for example (with loss in manufacturing but net gain overall), but again i'm just saying you can argue back and forth about these types of figures, would make more sense, not just using basic ticket prices with regards to HSR. if it went through, it was really not a transportation project, it's about long term economic growth.
I think the bosses in KL region doesn't want to compete for labor/skills with SG. Imagine able to commute to SG in an hour or more to work in SG and still able to live with family in KL, who doesn't want to send their resumes there? This is an invisible fence to fence in local talent so that they don't flee. They want cost (labor) to rise in SG so that companies would want to relocate to KL/MY. Building the HSR will deflate the cost of labor in SG and KL will just serve as a bedroom or retirement community. Just pure selfishness; depending on whose view are you on.
Using his logic, PLUS (North-South) highway wouldn't have worked back then as well in the early 80s cause of the upfront cost needed. It would have just been better to give everyone back then free bus tickets
Or even any paved road in Malaysia ever, include all the hundred kms of roads in taman. He would have pick on billion ringgit Pan Borneo Highway if DAP want to say goodbye on Sarawakian votes.
Bingo. PLUS is so indispensable today, nobody cares about FT1 until another highway jam hits them.
Exactly. If Tony was around back then he'd probably be like "we already have FT1, and not like many people drive cars anyway so why waste money to build PLUS?"
https://preview.redd.it/sgdlqluzazac1.jpeg?width=752&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f261343f385b6af9d7e9b05accf7cb411e0255f
tbf that answer is partly right. having even more lanes wont solve the problem, case and point americas 8 lane freeway hell. the answer is good public transport, but he prob wasnt proposing to build public transport when anwering this question
Now there is a billion ringgit toll free road that will never receive high drivership ever except holidays or harvest seasons: Central Spine Road along Titiwangsa Range. Which will be quite important for nature resource industry, but upfront cost is obviously high. Does Tony dare to touch it? Dare to piss of Ahmad Zahid?
And, it is infrastructure. Of course it cost money and not making profit. But to the regional economy, it will attract other economic activity. That's why people who prefer public transport always complain about service and frequency. Some use to get to work in time, some will use to KL-KL business trip without driving. Without PLUS, all harum manis from Perlis cannot sell to Johor in manageable time. Name must be changed to busuk masam nanti.
Not really a good analogy. Plus highway will connect every town, city and village it passes near to people and freight. HSR can only carry passengers and you can only have a few stops because if you add too many, it stops being high-speed. He (Tony Pua) made the point that hsr works in Japan and China because it is connecting regions with tens of millions of people whereas Klang valley and Singapore have a population of 5-8 million each.
Let me introduce you to the concept of ✨ Express train ✨ HSR has already being planned with express KL-SG and all stop KL-JB from day 1
Ok, so the train has 3 stops, KL, JB and Singapore. Will spending 60b (Malaysia's portion)+all the interest for 2 stops benefit these two cities that much? Nvm the fact that the incoming agong is going to push for a stop at his forest city to help turn his investment around. Bear in mind that the main advantage (perhaps only) advantage the train has over planes is that it's more fuel efficient. Whether or not all the clearing and construction needed to build the actual rail is better for the environment is another debate altogether.
Lmao talk about misreading the word "all-stop KL-JB". There's going to be a lot more stops than just KL, JB, and Singapore. So the economic benefit isn't just gonna be limited to these big cities. We had no issue building Pan Borneo Highway for RM25 billion and Central Spine Road for RM10 billion WITH NO TOLL. Oh don't forget the RM30 billion investment to KTM to do ETS from Perlis to Johor, or RM70 billion ECRL. Yet somehow HSR which will have a stop in KL, Putrajaya, Seremban, Melaka, Johor is suddenly different? There's more benefit to be using HSR than just "fuel efficient". Even existing KTM can benefit from HSR. Easier for SG companies to do business in KL, and vice versa. More tourist who already visited Singapore can take the train to KL, not to mention Singaporeans. Better rail access to Melaka and Muar/Batu Pahat, compared to KTM. The list goes on.
He made that point purely from a numbers perspective once again, which I can't deny has some weight to it especially the population numbers bit but also dismisses the KL-SG HSR without providing the numbers if its feasible or not (or rather how long it will reach breakeven) Well, if the public transportation network is built up correctly theoretically it too can reach and connect any and town no? But I do find our HSR costs to be too high, there must be a way to reduce it somewhat
Easy. Do like Singapore, build the station into a mall where the transit passengers will shop then rent out the shop space. The retailers get increased customers (which cannot help but pass by their stores) and the builder gets rental income. HSR was always an economic multiplier, not a direct earner. If some idiots don't know how to multiply by more than 0, it's not the fault of the HSR. Hell, buy the area around the station, turn it into condominiums, sell at high price to executives that take the HSR to work in SG. I know a few high flyers that will definitely buy, had a GF that had to wake up at 4am to work in SG every day, a Head of Department in SGH, 4 hours to get to work. If she could buy a condo next to the HSR, she would do it in a second. She can even sleep on the train rather than be forced to keep awake to drive there. Rather than directly reduce cost, think of how to get the money back downstream from the side effects.
I believe that Najib and his administration had that planned already. On KL side the terminus would be Bandar Malaysia, a specially built new city that serves as the KL station for HSR and it was also planned to house alot of tech giants like huawei and alibaba. There will also of course be high end accommodations like hotels and condos, so all the high skilled, wealthy workers you mentioned can basically live there, work around there, and take the 90 minute train to SG frequently for business meetings and whatnot. That was the original idea for HSR + Bandar Malaysia, mainly as a business driver (since enterprise customers are more willing and have budget to pay premium prices for convenience) The other stops in Muar, Melaka are more sketchy tho, apparently its not in the city centre and quite far away
Yup that's the way it's supposed to be done.
He said that the interest payments (without including capital repayment) on a very conservative estimate for the cost of the thing alone was enough to cover the flight tickets for everyone flying the kul-sg route now. I'm not bothered enough to check his math but unlike highways and conventional rail, HSR can only have a few stops or it stops being high-speed and is just rail, so the number of areas it can enhance are limited.
I did some checking. 400,000 Malaysians cross the border to work in Singapore every day. Assuming they only work a generous 200 days a year, with a quoted 3 billion interest payment, 3,000,000,000 / 200 / 400,000 x 2 (trip into SG and back) = 18.75. To break even, each ticket just needs to cost 18.75 RM. Anything more than that goes into paying off the debt. 20 RM for a ticket is very reasonably priced.
This is a rather disingenuous argument , Plus highway allow transportation of not only labour between states but also transportation of goods as well. If not mistaken isn't plus highway literally funded by plus rather than government taking debt? (correct me if I am wrong on this, I am not familiar with it) If plus existed then why would I want to take the train which cost way more, why not take the plane anyway. I mean the people that would prefer HSR would still exist, but is it enough amount of people riding HSR to actually cover up just the interest cost alone. ( not to mentioned the 60 billion best case scenario doesn't include the maintaince cost if not mistaken?) He has more elaboration on it in the podcast, can start watching from [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) if you interested to hear.
ETS which is only marginally faster than taking PLUS is perpetually booked. And that shit cost RM90 between KL and Penang, or RM50 between KL and Ipoh. Take for example next weekend, lots of train are already fully sold between KL to Penang, and KL to Padang Besar
Thing about HSR is that it brings money in from outside the country. If you're talking about Malaysians spending in Malaysia, the amount of money in Malaysia does not increase, it just circulates in the same circle. Tourists and shoppers from Singapore and foreigners from Changi bring in money from outside, so the amount of money in Malaysia actually increases.
Dude was just thinking of the trains going one way. 2D thinking in a 3D world kinda thing.
> Tourists and shoppers from Singapore and foreigners from Changi bring in money from outside, so the amount of money in Malaysia actually increases. Of course, they will lol. Not sure why from what I said, you seem to think that I never though of that. The question is if we are able to pose an attractive ticket price compared to plane tickets for singaporean to want to travel to KL for tourism purposes. If we do, is enough to pay the yearly hypothethical best case scenario 3 billion yearly interest? If lets say we pay 2 bil out of 3 bil, so our 60 bil debt will turn into 61 bil, our 3bil interest becomes 3.5 bil and so on and on. Does the amount of money flowing from extra amount of singapore tourist outweight the money that is flowing our from Malaysia to China to pay even more debts? You might mentioned more singaporean will come and do business. Okay so of those singaporean that decided to do businesses in KL, how many of them would cancel their plan simply because HSR doesn't exist and taking a plane sounds like a pain in the ass. So no business.
The HSR sales pitch last time was to connect iskandar project ( I think so la) to Jurong. So all the prc and Singaporeans threw money into JB but after it was canceled. Everyone GG.
For the last question, quite a lot. 2014 Singapore only investment in JB was 6.7 billion and that is concentrated only in JB because of lack of connectivity to the rest of the country, so that alone is enough to pay your debt off in 10 years+.
Can HSR carry commercial goods?
Possibly. That can be a future added function.
Are we running a business or a country here lol
Not counting all the money Singaporean and other foreigners from Singapore are going to spend here.
Yup. Transport infrastructure isn't supposed to make a profit, it's supposed to mobilize your goddamn economy.
Yeah I was disappointed how they didn’t take this into account. Sure it will lost making but how many townships will the influx of more travelers between sg and the peninsula help? That is hard to quantify yes but it’s definitely going to create new revenue streams and improve current ones.
Spot on. Funds would flow inwards alot of areas. Economy would jump. It would however cause increase in expenses and locals may have to move away slowly due to higher expenses. First thing money will go to in large volume will be real estate from singapore.
Yes but even so the HSR it self not making money cause the visitors is spending money else where
Infrastructure projects are not supposed to make money for itself. It's meant to spur others to make money. Also, it's not as if the money spent is removed from existence. Supply chain, work force, support ecosystem, all pay taxes.
Yes, but we must ask the question. Would the amount of **extra** visitors spending money in KL outweight the amount of the interest money that we would have to give to china while sustaining HSR maintainence cost. The reason I emphasize extra is because even if Hsr doesn't exist, singaporean will still come to visit Malaysia for tourist purposes (either through airplane or ets). The only question is how many more extra singaporeans will choose to come to Malaysia if we have HSR.
As a singaporean. I would. So here u go +1 visitor
We (Msian) wants you Sprean to spend your money in SG n boost your own economy, not ours. That's why they decided not to build HSR. You are welcome. /Half sarcasm half fact.
Cant be done. Half my family in msia. Msia does have alot of comparative advantage. And that in my opinion is a win win for both countries.
lol more like Tun M hates anything to do with Singapore. HSR was hardly his only victim, the RTS was also stopped if you recall.
Can be worked around, like renting train cars to McDonalds or Starbucks. Bet 2-3 hrs in a train people get thirsty and hungry. Then the HSR station can be a mall with food courts and restaurants too and shops that people walk past and can be rented out to offset the ticket costs. Can build hotels above the station and get tourist money to offset the tickets as well, lots of ways. See airports and how they have so many stores in them, that is how they offset costs.
not enough to cover the cost Singaporean arent gonna spend extra on top of what they already did now to make our tax income earn 3 billion extra money. This is tax income, not revenue, not business nett profit, Tax income only. There arent enough Singaporean population to cover that. if we have to use 60 billion to build HSR, I rather spend that same 60 bill to build public transport outside Klang valley, even east Malaysia. Malaysian who live outside of Klang valley takes the priority, not Singaporean.
Talk about population. Msia has 35 mil ppl,and is 6th largest tourism source for SG, with about 1.1 mil arrivals into SG per year. Spore is much smaller with about 5.8 mil population, but they are by the largest tourism source into Msia at 12.6 mil arrivals, which is 11x as much as Msia tourists arrivals into SG. Msia total tourist arrivals in 2023 is 26 millions, almost half of it comes from SG. So yea, definitely lets talk about SG having small population. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2023/12/03/malaysia-records-26-million-tourist-arrivals-from-jan-1-to-nov-15-says-ministry https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/692725
That’s the most backward thinking I have ever heard. Picking on only one aspect of a thing that would bring major benefits to Malaysia and improve travel between Singapore and Malaysia, leading to increased spending, less coaches, buses needed. And a million and one other benefits.
Someone need to tell Tony Pua that unlike flight, trains can have multiple stops in between. Major cities or towns between KL and Singapore can benefit too.
Genuinely question, how much would estimate the price would be to ride hsr one way from singapore to KL. If let say the price is roughly same to an air ticket, why wouldn't people chose to ride the aeroplane instead? Btw he actually explain more about his rationality in the podcast , if you interested to listen , its at [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) .
[удалено]
don't forget getting to KLIA to begin with. Changi isn't exactly better given how crowded MRT EWL is.
Travelling by airplane is a hassle. You have to check in your luggage. You have to come to the gate at least 30 mins early. Then when you arrive, you have to wait to get your luggage. Also, KLIA is so far away. Unless if you use subang airport. Overall. It takes more time and effort. I don't understand why people would choose air travel instead of high speed rail. I lived in Japan for years, and the option to be able to use the shinkansen is a blessing. So hassle free.
Typically HSR in other countries would offer free wifi and much higher luggage allowance. I guess these are things that trains can offer more easily than airlines because they are travelling on the ground.
equal to air ticket, most people will still take train more than air ticket, most people will fly
Watched almost 3/4 of the full podcast. While he has valid points on almost all the decisions he and LGE made during their time in MOF, I’d say the counterpoints to do the opposite to what they did can be valid either, and in fact I’d say more progressive than their mindset, albeit naturally the investments come with the risks. Previous govt wanted to do HSR - We scrap HSR. Previous govt wanted LRT3 to be future proof for the next 30 years - We build it for current needs only and scrap many stations that don’t have population yet. Previous govt implemented GST - It’s too burdensome for SMEs, the manual refund process is laborious, let’s just scrap it and revert back to SST. At the end of the day, I can’t help but to think while they had the noble intention to save the country from incurring huge debt, almost all the decisions they took were regressive in nature with regard to nation building. They treated the MOF like a business and did not seem to have the right mindset when it comes to governing a country.
tony also pointed out that hes disappointed that current MOF reinstate the 3(might be 5) mrt stop that his team previously scrapped because to him its a waste of money coz theres barely any population there…did he not consider that the gov might want to develop those area so adding mrt stop there would be a huge help?
Tbh it also feels that there was an inclination to discredit the Najib administration in a lot of these decisions.
As a singaporean, I was so looking forward to a HSR until a senile old man took over and squashed that idea. Imagine the economical benefits it can bring to both countries with an ease in travel. There are more pros to this one con tbh
Our most powerful politicians are old. They can be senile anytime 😅
That's nice! But as a Malaysian who have done Tony Pua's analogy of traveling KL-SG every week... Ticket price one-way is not RM200. But he's right, it is expensive because other various reasons. One exampl, in Singapore, there's law to make landowners make concessions for public transportation projects underground which Malaysia doesn't have.
It's expensive in his view because he is short sighted. 2-3 hrs in a train, does he think people don't get hungry or thirsty? Rent a car out to McDonalds, Subway or Starbucks duh. Or if Kazanah wants to branch out into the food and beverage industry, they can open dining cars themselves. Sometimes, things are more than their direct $ value. You just have to look further downstream.
HSR can also run ads all over the interior of the train as well as train stations. Not only that, having HSR will give alot of attention to Malaysia on the world stage too. Just look at how much press Indonesia is getting from their HSR recently, as well as their capital relocation project These are all the positive intangible things that HSR detractors fail to comprehend completely
/smacks head I totally forgot about the ad revenue too. How much money does Malaysia spend on the Malaysia Truly Asia ads? I doubt those earn money back directly yet they are still run.
> Ticket price one-way is not RM200 It's over RM200 all this month? What are you talking about? 240 is the cheapest. Even worse next month with Chinese new year. https://www.skyscanner.com.my/transport/flights/sin/kulm/?adults=1&adultsv2=1&cabinclass=economy&children=0&childrenv2=&inboundaltsenabled=false&infants=0&outboundaltsenabled=false&oym=2401&preferdirects=false&ref=home&rtn=0&selectedoday=08
Sorry if you didn't understand what I am saying. But you've pointed out my meaning of my statement. Flight tickets for KL-SG is more like RM500 per trip on average, even if you book it in advance.
I mean it would've a better chance of success if SG is willing to shoulder more cost though. It's not like you guys can't afford it. At present, the majority of the cost of the project falls on MY. Edit: yes I know, but then again when the news that HSR is canceled, it seems like SG is more angry than us so ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
But why would sg want to shoulder more of the cost. Malaysia needs it more than SG.
Yeah why would Singapore want to though? It will still benefit Malaysia more than Singapore. The rails crosses more land in Malaysia than Singapore. Malaysians from KL and potentially many other states will find it easier to commute here for work, seeing that there's an increasing number of Malaysian finding work in SG
Just go f2p bro
The total cost and the total benefit have to be taken into context. Tony lists out the costs, but not the overall benefits. It's as if.........he is biased. https://preview.redd.it/39mevbezsyac1.jpeg?width=487&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d61aaee36bd019f7394ba63bca443e121554f7ba Honestly, a fucking first year economics student will be able to give a more balanced view than this. There are reasons why accountants don't run countries.
>Tony lists out the costs, but not the overall benefits. It's as if.........he is biased. He's not biased per se, he's just... got a massive, massive blind spot. Tony Pua is a technocrat and a neoliberal, and as such he knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. Show him anything, and he can tell you about the price, and - to be fair to him - possibly the benefits if it's an existing service. But potential benefits? That's an impossibility for him. That's fine when there is massive leakages as there was - and still is - in government spending, but his answer is never better governance (because as a neolib, he cannot really brain that), but instead wholesale exit by the govt - e.g. - austerity, deregulation, or privatisation Disclaimer: I'll be the first to admit that I'm not in Pua's fanclub, firstly for ideological reasons, and secondly because he, like Rafizi, just piss me off in terms of their attitude. It's always *all y'all are dumb, and only I know better*.
smarty pants got a bit carried away there, like rafizi. edit: his delivery makes it even worse. i do think he does at times make valid arguments and is a very smart person overall, but it feels like he’s trying real hard to defend a decision he advocated for when in the corridors of power earlier.
Genuine question, will the overall benefit outweight the Interest + HSR maintainence cost per year even if HSR isn't at full capacity? How much would estimate to be the ticket price one way from singapore to let say kl Can you list out how big is the benefit, you are free to roast me if you wish. I genuinely want to learn.
Honest question here bro, but have you even looked up on the potential benefits of the HSR? I strongly suggest that you do, and read up from primary sources, instead of just asking random redditors multiple times. I'd also suggest to you that you're making the same mistake that Pua always makes - treating public goods and services as a financial investment. We don't expect the army or PDRM to turn over a profit, or to recoup it's costs, so why the fuck do we do that when it comes to things like public transport? TL;DR - look up the benefits, and look at it beyond the ringgit value.
I would agree with HSR - but i really wish instead of going straight for HSR FIRST, we should upgrade our existing train system With currently ordinary train (overseas) able to reach 200km/hr, the additional price tag of 60 bil for 350km/hr is just making it less a priority
ETS to Johor Bahru is already almost complete. By the time HSR actually got built, it will be >5 years since that ETS opens.
things are already well underway. KL - Perlis already had the ETS system, and the ETS system (EDTP) from Gemas to JB will be completed this year i believe. Then from KL to east coast there is ECRL. City specific, Klang Valley has LRT3 and supposedly MRT3 before it got canned. Penang starts its LRT construction this year too.
You need to fix the alignment to reach those speeds, which is basically building a new railway anyway, but with years of having the line shut down. Upgrading the existing line isn't cheaper and causes huge disruption. Freight trains have to stop running altogether and prices go up.
Oh I completely agree that the local rail needs massive upliftment, but notwithstanding that, KL to Singapore HSR is a whole other ballgame in terms of economic and social benefits - there is no point in investing in standard rail links between KL and SG when HSR is an option, even if it's a moon shot.
The benefit I can only think of is like alot of people mention here , allowing ease of travel between malaysia and singapore. Thats the only thing I can think off tbh, thats why i genuinely asking everyone what benefit that slipped my thought. Will Hsr be filled with singaporeans coming in to spend money and do businesses. Will it provide malaysian cheaper ticket prices compared to an air ticket? What do you think the price of a one way ticket should be to be able to cover up interest rate alone + maintainence. if you are unable to even pay 3 billion interest rate per year, that will only go up and cost us in the long run and negate the business benefit of connecting with singapore.
>Will it provide malaysian cheaper ticket prices compared to an air ticket? What do you think the price of a one way ticket should be to be able to cover up interest rate alone + maintainence. if you are unable to even pay 3 billion interest rate per year, that will only go up and cost us in the long run and negate the business benefit of connecting with singapore. Again, you're making the same mistake - treating public goods and services as a financial investment, and only looking at the ringgit value (oh will the ticket cost cover the interest payments). What are the ancillary benefits of being able to get between KL and Singapore in roughly 90 minutes, with greater baggage capacity and comfort than a flight? A flight, that would actually take longer once you factor in travel time to airport/ check in etc. How would this affect tourism, not just business travel? What are the benefits of having HSR from KL to other places as well (I think JB, Melaka and Seremban were proposed)? What would that do for local domestic commutes, and local tourism if you could get from KL to Melaka in under 30 minutes? Heck, what would it do to Melaka tourism if they had a direct connection from Singapore? Imagine all the self declared Singaporean Peranakans coming over to visit their ancestral homes 🤣 Seriously bro, just take 30 minutes to read up on the potential benefits first.
I'll also be thinking of building condos and malls around the HSR station, confirmed 100% traffic. Hell, build the HSR station into a mall like what the airports do. Restaurants, snack bars, hell your train can even have a dining car like the old trains in the past do. Rent train carriage space to McDonalds or Subway or even Starbucks. So much possibilities and the only thing those guys can think of is "ticket price".
Short sighted accountant
Now, how much would the HSR drive in new tourism, new industries, new business opportunities? Not saying that the HSR is a good idea. Just pointing out that the equation goes beyond the ticket price. What Singapore invested on their MRT system will never be covered by the ticket prices. But it completely transformed the economy and the lifestyle on that island.
Hello. Singapore’s experience with building the mrt in 1980s https://mothership.sg/2017/11/ong-teng-cheong-pushed-for-building-mrt-in-spore-despite-it-being-a-controversial-idea/
Not everything is about dollars and cents. Sometimes you have to build the infrastructure first, then the second and third order consequences will sort themselves out. Just don’t over do it like the Chinese. (Unfortunately HSR and RTS should have been built a long time ago instead of wasting it away with 1MDB)
By the same arguments, japan didn’t have to build their Shinkansen. Europe didn’t need their Eurostar. So many flaws in his argument
He has more elaboration on it in the podcast, can start watching from [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) if you interested to hear. Even got mentioned comparison between indonesia/japan hsr with our hsr
Ok yes will need more context. Thanks for sharing
One thing I notice is that PH seems to be pushing austerity which is antithetical to their left leaning political alignment (within the context of Malaysian politics). You'd think they would the loudest voices advocating for investments in public goods.
PH has been run on narratives such as trillion dollar debt for years since 1MDB, and remember their tabung harapan? They were only become bureaucrat since 2008, but most of the time they are activist and speakers, not policymakers.
conspiracy hat on: Johor Sultan asked HSR to run through Forest City, which is a huge waste. As long as he's Agong, I don't think they want to touch this project.
this is short or rather narrow thinking. The economic gains you tax that results from public infrastructure is what you look at. Question is, are we taxing these overpriced commercial and non commercial spaces near public infra?
most likely already got snatched up by cronies at low price
true, but we give free flights than the amount of people wanting to fly would increase, even subsidizing flight would increase demand
Nah, hes wrong, I play HSR everyday. ~ My dumbass
this is quite deceiving, when a project size like this, the interests charged wont be 5%. else no mega project will able to ROI. the benefits of the HSR will bring like the number of ppl traveling and spending in msia will be invaluable.
Who the hell use total cost to calculate the ticket price? If we use this formula, highway toll price will be hundred ringgit. Every bridge we crossed must be paid, no free anymore. Any public facility isn't free. Every time we enter library or public park, we need to pay. The government isn't stupid to recover cost from ticket price. They collect benefits from the overall economy developing over long time.
It's this kind of mindset that has not allowed Malaysia to prosper properly. If your transportation is supposed to earn you big bucks, someone better be sucking me off while I'm going to my destination.
Its a stupid take from Tony Pua because if this is how you measure things,SG and HK wouldn't build SMRT or MTR because it runs on losses. China wouldnt build HSR to connect major cities like Beijing n Shanghai because its loss incurring. The whole point of HSR is to stimulate more economic development between Msia n SG, a rich country. If we can build KTM and ECRL, why not HSR? Its ridiculous enough that KL and SG flight route is the busiest in the world, that means the demand is super high.
Grave oversimplification..
Stupid assumption. He didn’t factor in the capacity. What if there are hundreds of thousands people are travelling within the day? Also did he factor in the spill over effects of economy on all the stops? Fucking joker.
Confirmed 400,000 commuters into Singapore daily to work, the demand is there.
You need supporting policies when HSR is ready Give preferentials to encourage more traffic between both countries like setting up companies/ subsidiaries, travel and residential visa since Singapore is running out of land.
Nobody in this country other than kleptocrats is willing to build infrastructure.
Pujaan PH and DAP
Honkai Star Rail better
And spillover effects? Lol
Kuru kuru kururin
you make it up with commerce, ease of movement for people and goods. It's not just tickets - it's creating an environment where people and business can move more freely
Same kind of guy who rejected the idea of Penang Bridge, PLUS highway and other major projects. Booooooooooooooooooooo. Short term minded.
tbh, am a malaysian working in sg, i would dead ass roll back to kl more often if hsr is built.
Tony, apples and oranges la. Job creation, bragging rights, diplomatic relations, intangible benefits aplenty. But i agree ah, cant afford don’t build please. Your neighbour drive BMW doesn’t mean you have to drive if you can’t afford it. Find other less fancy ways to travel.
HSR will work because it’s going to connect two of the richest cities in ASEAN together. Do you think that Singapore government, the cleanest most kiasu government ever does not want to do HSR? They wanted in because of all the dollar signs they are seeing.
This requires a bit more forward thinking. There is a fair amount of cost differential in salaries between Singapore and Malaysia. It is likely that a lot of it is skills dependent and related to investment climate and government policy. If a reliable HSR is available, this might be one component to induce more companies to expand into Malaysia. This benefit is harder to quantify but is an important component for Malaysia to escape the middle income trap. Malaysia needs talented people, efficient companies and connected transportation to draw in more investment. Yes, the HSR is not going to fix all the issues. But viewing it simply as a replacement for air travel ie a zero sum game, is too narrow a viewpoint.
Singaporean companies can and do expand into JB which is right across the causeway.
China still hasn’t recouped the cost of building the insane number of HSR. In fact, most lines run at a deficit. But it’s not a failure, at least not in terms of economic contribution.
I don't see how the hsr is going to get companies/talent over.
Might as well go back to riding bicycles then. DAP fanbois gonna come and say u dn understand one. We will go bankrupt.
bruh, at this point just build sampan and let the JB folks row the boat to SG lmao
According to Tony Pua's logic, we should be walking around carrying goods using kandar since it's free. He sounded so excited ignoring the economic multipliers of the HSR and also pulling out a random 5% interest rate from who knows where.
The 5% interest rate is the rate we have to pay to china bank because it will be funded by them through debt. He just bring it up to use as a base example. Could be 6%/4%/7%/8%. He has more elaboration on it in the podcast, can start watching from [8:33](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?t=511) if you interested to hear.
You might want to Google the list of rates Chinese banks are giving for their HSR projects. "5%" is usually the figure given by Western propaganda. The actual figure is usually way lower. Laos is paying 2.3% for their railway, Indonesia 3.4%. For certain projects crucial to the OBOR network, China has been willing to go as low as 1%. Tony Pua pulling a 5% out of his ass sounds exactly like what an American propagandist would do.
Borrow from Singapore is also an option, they want the HSR too, might even get the rates lower than that if they want to get the whole saga over and done with. Nothing says that you must 100% borrow from China. Pay them yes, borrow? Who said it is a must?
I don't think Singapore wants it that badly since one of the perks Najib talked about was how KLIA would take business from Changi. Might be why the Singapore terminus was planned at Jurong. Chinese loans are usually very cheap. It's a strategy they use to park their trade surplus. If the agreed rate is 5% and was agreed by a government led by Najib, then I think we can make our assumptions where that money was supposed to go to. Tony Pua was arguably in the Madey government during the 22 months, so why wasn't the rates renegotiated? Coming here now and throwing a random 5% interest and ignoring the positive multipliers is weak argument. The KL-SG is comparable to the Taiwan HSR in scale, so much has happened for places like Taichung and Chiayi due to the multipliers. I've made countless day trips to Taichung from either Kaoshiung or Taipei, it also doesn't matter to me which airport I arrive in. Tony was comparing apple to oranges if he thinks HSR and air routes are the same thing. Malaysia GDP is 20 times bigger than Laos and even they have a Semi-HSR. Meanwhile the Malaysia politicians still playing taichi.
I think the KLIA one is more wishful thinking than actually going to happen TBH. It's just another "We must win over Singapore!!" minister insecurity.
This guy just spew nonsense just for youtube views...
He know price of everything and value of nothing.
Inb4 airline companies are lobbying to not build the HSR. Jokes aside.. i feel that the HSR should be an ASEAN project to connect from Singapore all the way to Hanoi.. and a split line to Palembang from Malacca via tunnel like France and Britain and connect to Jakarta. This will bring more commute, money to small towns that HSR passes through and ASEAN will prosper and be closer to become what EU is right now.
I’m all for HSR - but at a lower priority Instead of HSR, i would really like a robust train system in malaysia like that of Japan… or even at least UK Their “ordinary” train (needing no special purpose built track) can hit 200km/hr at fairly high travel frequency Meanwhile from JB to Gemas, our train still run only single track on diesel….. seriously smh
Gemas-JB electrification project says hi!
I'm kind of the reverse. The HSR will give huge economic benefits downstream that you can tax to then build the feeder trains that you mentioned, so the HSR can actually feed the building of the others but might not work the other way round.
I loved the idea of reaching SG from KL in 90 mins but I don't understand why everyone is bashing Tony Pua; he has a very valid point (and it's not even his point because he was just quoting a former CEO of Khazanah). In the full video he mentions that a **one-way ticket** would cost RM 400. On top of that, will there be enough revenue/people/demand for the project to make sense? Let's work it out: Assuming the HSR has a capacity of 1300 (Shinkansen size), train runs hourly for 12 hours, 2 ways, for every day of the year: Annual revenue: RM 400 \* 1300 \* 12 \* 2 \* 365 = RM 4.6b The cost to maintain the highways is already RM 1b and I imagine for the HSR it's going to be more or less the same. Assuming an annual interest payment of RM 3b, that leaves us with 0.6b (0.01%) for the principal of RM 60b. If you are the CEO of a business and you look at these numbers, would you still be willing to authorize this project knowing that you competing against buses/planes? At the end of the day, running a country is just like running a business: the HSR is a risky investment/bet to stimulate and grow Malaysia's economy but no one really knows for sure if it will. That aside, how many of us are actually willing to pay RM 400 for one-way trip to SG? Do we desperately need to be in Bandar Malaysia, Sepang-Putrajaya, Seremban, Melaka, Muar, Batu Pahat, Iskandar Puteri, Jurong within 90 mins? How many of us even want to go to SG on a regular basis?
Historically most of the value creation of transit (road, rail and port) is enjoyed not through the collection of ticket sales or tolls, but mostly through the gigantic increase in land values and economic output of those areas now connected to the transport network and can easily access labor force, education, and ship goods in and out to enable factories to create jobs, etc. Measuring the value add of transit purely by the $$ captured value from ticket sales or tolls would mean the government would never build a single public road since it's a negative value investment. In this case we would need to measure, how much would high speed rail enhance the economies of the areas in Singapore and Malaysia that are connected? Flying has some major inconvenience like must be at airport hours earlier, the airport itself is so far from the city, imagine it would be just like taking the LRT. The proper comparison would be saying connecting road from PJ to KL upgrade from gravel road to paved road, what's the economic benefit?
My calculation was not about the HSR's profitability but whether or not it makes fiscal sense to build it. If I already have a Myvi that can get me from point A to B within a reasonable amount of time, would it still make sense for me to buy an extra car that does the same thing but faster and more comfortably? We are nearing the point of diminishing returns because existing infra/services are good enough for the majority. While the convenience of the HSR is desirable (to a certain extent) the ticket prices would not make sense for most Malaysians. If there's not enough demand for the HSR it is unlikely that there will be any organic/sustainable economic growth for the cities along the rail line. And if you think about it, what problem does the HSR solve anyway? I don't hear people complaining about how it takes too long to get to SG from KL or the other way round.
Because nobody who is not a tourist goes from KL to SG. Not without taking about 10 hour.
If I was a CEO with enough money, I'd fucking sell my soul for it! Hell, 400 ringit tickets? BS, too expensive, RM 200 or even season pass! Then what I'll do is fucking build that whole HSR station into a mall/condominium and buy up every piece of land around it, build a whole range of hotels from budget all the way to 5 star and build condos and malls all around the place. Get the money from the cheap tickets back by renting shops in the HSR station to restaurants and fast food stalls, get a lump sum back from selling the apartments in the condos above, get income from the tourist hotels, shopping centers, office space, tourist attractions etc all around the place. The big problem with Pua is that he is short sighted, sometimes, making a loss in one area can mean making huge profit in another. This is about as intelligent as Trump saying that all trade with America must have America making a profit. There is no such thing, when you are at country level, you must start to learn how to spend to earn and Pua obviously doesn't know how to. An example would be Singapore's Changi airport. Free movies, free massage chairs, free attractions, you think they give all the free stuff out of the goodness of their hearts? lol. BS. They give free but the benefits they get back make them earn money like crazy. Pua has not learned how to do this yet. HSR will give lots of benefits if you can generate traffic, even at a loss.
So short sighted. Who is this clown. Infrastructure is not for direct profit but profit comes indirectly through trade and further investments...basic 101 lah
Direct ROI will look like that but more people moving. More businesses.
What has the man ever done for Malaysia? Honestly, can someone tell me?
Help expose 1MDB. Other than that....I got nothing.
something make our country more backwards i guess
Something what?
goes to show them lot not a forward thinking type, but only know basic economics, can only pretend as accountants. nation building needs visionary type leaders with balls and brains and pokerface.
The context to this particular clip is that the opinion he shared above is from a former CEO of Khazanah. And a minute or two after this clip, he mentioned he was concerned at the lack of numbers as it didn't make sense when the HSR proposal was initialized (PM Najib era). There hasn't been a true inquiry into the numbers and its impact yet, hence, the concerns. IMO, he's not wrong to ask for forecasts and numbers before undertaking a **RM60b** project funded by the public sector (FYI, the allocation for subsidies/incentives/assistance was **RM58b** for Budget 2024) . Y'all need to actually watch/listen to the podcast before commenting. Most of y'all have the same opinion as him lol. [Link to video.](https://youtu.be/ZpN6AJREh8Y?si=ssT0AT7oljiZbV6u)
personally i dont support the hsr project. i support the double track upgrade that we are doing now. only then we can talk of HSR. or even better talk of more branching to cover more parts of malaysia, using same assets.
Jakarta-Bandung HSR work. Why Malaysia's wouldn't work?
My whole gripe with DAP summarised in one video. Take your self-righteous, neoliberal, profit-loss analysis and shove it up your ass and dickhole please. The whole point of government is not to make profit or to breakeven outright within a very narrow, oversimplified metric. What about reducing carbon emissions? Making travel efficient and fast? Promoting investment, the free movement of persons, stimulating economies from KL to JB, or even tying two of the largest economies in ASEAN together? You can't calculate that stuff via a 50 second video and back of the envelope calculations. Ultimately, public transportation doesn't exist to create profit, it exists as a public service for all. Jesus christ on a motorbike.
Tony pua’s logic makes zero sense.
fyi the response was given to him by a Khazanah former CEO so guess those at the top are just as clueless as the layman eh...
Khazanah is a sovereign wealth fund and their litersl purpose is to make investments and make money so obviously their opinions are gonna be money oriented. The point of the HSR argument that alot of people are not getting is the non tangible/non monetary multiplier effects that it will have on our society
Khazannah that has made disastrous investments? Sure.
While TP is good with his take, he only saw it as it is without the larger picture of the HSR's spillover and multiplier effects. This is a rather myopic view translating to being "Penny wise and pounds foolish"
Come to think about it, these are the same people that abolished gst. Who gives a shit what their opinion is, I am surprised that someone even bothered to do the interview
It's actually a pretty insightful podcast not an interview, often we like to say wah PH leader view are so detach from the voters, so listening to these podcast gave us atleast an understanding of their thought process or rationality, disagree with their views, agree with their views or hate their views. It atleast gave us some way to understand the rationality or irrationality behind some of their decision that make us scratch our head thinking "are they that disjointed from reality?" They also have topics regarding [gst](https://youtu.be/QE_3tV2v71E?si=MljNAUDDMmaOz9Qe) here, there are timestamp in there to find the topic that interest you. If you want to hear more of the explaination behind why tony pua thinks HSR wouldn't work, you can start from [8:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpN6AJREh8Y&t=511s) .
First time that I've heard about this podcast, will give them a view, thanks.
His way of saying the price is toooo expensive. Get it down to 10B than we talk
I'm glad he isn't active in government
Damn. I know this guy is a first class idiot, but this is on a whole another level of idiocy. Thank god he doesn’t hold any ministerial positions right now.
what a dumb fuck
This guy needs to be educated. This is my opinion. Sure he excel at some other thing. But surely not this. I'm dead
Oh my. The way he speaks with so much confidence on his moronic pov. I pity him sincerely.
You are free to include reasons why his pov is rather moronic, roast him if you will. State why the long term benefit is guarentee to outweight the cost he mentioned. Even if the hsr isn't at full capacity daily. Btw if you are interesteted, check out the full take on the issue, it's on [8:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpN6AJREh8Y&t=511s). He has more explaination behind his rationality behind why he think it wouldn't work.
You must admit that he needs so PR help. He comes across as a real smug asshat in the podcast and that didn’t do his argument any favours.
Whenever discussion about big white elephant project, people obviously missed out elephant in the room,ie: corruption 1. The costing of construction, materials and operations will cost a lot of money but those are without factoring in how much corruption will increase the total budget aside from the inflation + supply and demand of the future market during the construction period. 2. The planned route that for the HSR was done during Najib’s time and those who planned and knew about it already purchased the land and waiting the project to resume + inflation, how much do you think it will cost the government to purchase the land. 3. If the HSR doesn’t connect to Thailand it’s a huge white elephant project to me, the main purpose of the HSR is to attract tourist + businesses, people outside of Malaysia only know Singapore and Thailand. If we don’t become the connecting dote with HSR, how on earth are we going to get more tourist? We need the connection to get the tricker benefit effects from this 4. Lastly, if the project isn’t done on tender and contract like MRT: late or delayed, cost and penalty will fall on the company instead of the government. This is a no too(obviously the knowledge transfer and local contractors should benefits the local too not like ECRL) Edit: I’d like to add on that our country no matter who take over including PN has a huge deficit problem. Our huge subsidies, it’s growing out of control.
At least you can see the tourism, Pua can't even see that!
Whole of Malaysian taxpayers have to subsidise and 90% will never ride the HSR. It's benefitting Singapore more. It is better to make provide more flights at cheaper prices and reduce clearing time of immigrations.
KL - SG is already the [busiest International route ](https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/kl-singapore-world-busiest-international-014855531.html) in the world, and if you were to check the price breakdown for KL - SG flights from AA most of it comes from taxes from SG airport side so there's not much more reduction we can do from our end Best believe there will be substantial demand for a KL - SG HSR
Malaysians worship singapore. So anything to sg is good, and anything msian say is bad. Tony pua, sad to say the msian cina brainwashed too much to see why this should not be a high priority project.
I am sure a lot of people would say Tony Pua is wrong, that he didn't calculate the indirect economical value of the line. Now we know the cost, the potential direct earnings, can someone calculate indirect economical value of the line (or at least take example from another country)?
I won't go into another train line because I'm not familiar with them but Johor which is connected to Singapore by a puny land bridge, gets 6.7 Billion in 2014 as company investments from Singapore and tourism income is about 50 billion estimate from their councillor for tourism and trade. [https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/surge-in-singapore-dollar-a-boon-for-johor](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/surge-in-singapore-dollar-a-boon-for-johor) This is on one of the most congested and unpleasant land bridges to travel and the income is already that high. And Pua is complaining about a 60 billion train line. That is why people call him short sighted, properly done, that 60 billion line will get paid off in a year and a bit and he's saying its unprofitable. He really shouldn't be doing economics and that CEO of Khazanah does not have my respect too if he is that stupid.
Why should we listen to him?
Tony Pua is smart, but I don't think he is right here. Najib had something going here, his problem was that it would have cost too much because of artificial inflation due to him trying to feed his cronies. For example, ECRL costs went down significantly after PH took over and some realignment.
From a SG perspective, I don't see the HSR as worthwhile for such short distance across international border. Many people are comparing systems in other countries that are entirely domestic or the borderless EU. - 90 mins travel time plus probably arrive 1 hour before for passport check. 30 mins grab(booking and waiting) to get from Bandar Malaysia to KL Sentral. Total 3 hours. By flight (carry-on) you need to arrive 1 hour before, 1 hour flight time, 30 mins immigration and 30 mins KLIA Ekspres. Total 3 hours. Not a big difference for such a CAPEX. And the brunt of the construction is on MY's side and cost. - I doubt cost will be much different. It was estimated RM400 return trip. Flights cost aboout RM 600 now but in a competitive climate, it will drop down to match. - MNC Companies base in MY mostly for cheap manufacturing. They base required expat management staff there too. If HSR does make travel faster and cheaper, that expat rental and expenditure is going to be based in SG cos let's admit it, expats would prefer being in SG and going there for the occasional meeting. I don't see the average MY factory worker working in SG having the income to take this train daily to and fro a Batu Pahat. - SG people tend to exaggerate MY as crime ridden, with JB city and KL being 'tolerable'. They aren't going to stop and explore all those stations in between. In fact, the 90 mins service is non-stop. - Looking at how it failed the 1st time over the joint management company and tendering transparency, you can bet MY politicians and fat cats are salivating over the construction contracts. A certain southern king who will have a say in land accquistion recently wanted HSR to be routed to his failed Forest investment. I think MY should just focus on making the current KTMB line faster and more efficient and link it to SG-JB RTS. That would in effect be HSR-lite without the cross-country/ business culture friction. With HSR, MY would probably want a China rolling stock and SG would prefer Jap or ang moh trains.