Malaysia' prime minister Mahathir Mohamad says his country intends to scrap a planned high-speed rail line that would have linked the capital Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. China, Japan, South Korea and others had been lobbying for the contract to provide trains for the 350-km line which would have cut travel time to just 90 minutes. But Mahathir says that given that country's debt burden racked up under the government of Najib Razak, Malaysia just can't afford it. Singapore's Ministry of Transport said Monday that it has not received any official notification from Malaysia.  Rian Maelzer reports from Kuala Lumpur.

Before its shock election victory on May 9, the Pakatan Harapan alliance had vowed to review all megaprojects. And they didn't come any bigger than the planned high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore at a cost of more than 17 billion dollars. Malaysia's new leadership says the previous government hid the true scale of the country's debts. And Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says his administration will now seek to cancel the HSR project.

MAHATHIR MOHAMAD PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA "It is a final decision. It will take time because we have an agreement with Singapore. It is not beneficial, it is going to cost us a huge sum of money, we will make no money at all from this operation."

RIAN MAELZER KUALA LUMPUR "Billions of dollars worth of contracts for civil works have already been awarded. And Malaysia will have to pay substantial compensation, including to Singapore, to get out of the deal."

The cancellation will also be a blow to companies from China, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere who had been lobbying hard to provide the high-speed train systems. Also under scrutiny is the 15 billion-dollar East Coast Rail Link stretching from Malaysia's west coast across the peninsula and north to the Thai border. China is leading the construction as well as providing 85 percent of the funding through soft loans. Mahathir says the government wants to renegotiate terms with China, questioning the necessity, viability and cost of the project. 

BAI TIAN CHINA'S AMBASSADOR TO MALAYSIA "This railway construction project is already been in full progress. Everything is going smoothly. The original purpose of the project is to improve the transportation and logistics between east and west coast of Malaysia peninsula."

But judging from comments on the internet, most Malaysians seem to agree with Mahathir that reducing the country's debt overrides the need for such costly infrastructure projects. RM, CGTN, Kuala Lumpur.