PRIME Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad today gave his approval for China’s Belt and Road idea and suggested that train links between the east and west is improved further to make trade easier and better.
“Yes, the Belt and Road idea is great. I am fully in support of the Belt and Road initiative. I am sure my country, Malaysia, will benefit from the project,” he said in his speech at the High Level Meeting of Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing today.
He said the Silk Road, the land passage between east and west, has not received much attention, adding that with modern technologies the passage can be improved.
“If ships can be built bigger, why can’t trains be equally big to carry more goods and raw materials and people?
“Have we reached the limit in terms of the size and length of trains. I think not. If the rail gauge is widened, can we not build bigger trains? Can we not have longer trains, maybe a kilometre long?
“Then there is this improvement in the speed of trains. With all the sensors that are available can we not build safer, faster trains to cope with the increased needs of trade today,” he said.
The prime minister said trains, which are faster than ships, can shorten the passage between east and west.
“We have the technology and the money to bring about these improvements. As the sea routes and land routes improve, trade and travel will grow and with this the wealth of the world will increase for the betterment of everyone.”
Dr Mahathir also said modern technology can ensure bureaucratic hassles do not slow the speed of travel.
“Modern technology with the ease of data collection, of artificial intelligence and wireless communication should enable monitoring and checking to be done without the need for physical inspection.
“With these technologies much time would be saved. And accordingly the growth in the usage of the passages will be rapid,” he said.
He, however, warned that terrorism and wars will make these modern marvels incapable of delivering the benefits they promise, stressing that the passages must be safe.
“The world claims to be civilised. But these civilised people still resort to killing each other to resolve problems. Their capacity to destroy is far greater than their capacity to build.
“It is imperative that the world become less primitive and reject the use of force and massacres in order to benefit from the opening up of new passages for trade and freight that the Belt and Road initiative promises,” he said.
The forum is on projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has seen China build multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects in mostly Third-World Asian countries.
Touted as one of the largest international summits this year, the heads and representative of 150 countries will be present.
BRI projects are meant to revive ancient Chinese trade routes, such as the Silk Road and to build new commercial and political links as part of its rise as a global superpower.
Dr Mahathir and the Pakatan Harapan government had previously questioned some of the mega projects entered by previous Barisan Nasional government with China, which were part of the country’s Belt and Road Initiative.
This included the East Coast Rail Link project to connect Klang to Kota Baru, and then as a larger plan, to join a high speed train link to China through Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
On April 12, Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd and China Communications Construction Company Ltd signed a supplementary agreement paving the way for the revival of the ECRL project at reduced cost.
Under the new agreement, construction of Phase 1 and 2 will resume and be completed at the cost of RM68 million per km from the original RM98 million per km. This adds up to a total savings of RM21.5 billion.
Realignment of the route will cut the length of the tracks by 40km to 648km.
THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT
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