REITERATING his stance on the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), prominent economist Prof Jomo Kwame Sundaram said national consideration and good relations between China and Malaysia will enable the two countries to re-open talks on the project.

Jomo told reporters that he agrees with Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng’s statement on national consideration and that is why he believes it is possible to re-open talks, especially given Chinese President Xi Xinping’s strict stance against corruption.

“If he (Xi)doesn’t want the belt and road project to be mired in controversy and associated with this, that’s why I believe if we handle it correctly it is possible to re-open it,” Jomo told reporters after an event in Kuala Lumpur today. 

Lim said that there are national considerations involved in the ECRL project and this made it difficult to shelve it.

The project has been renegotiated with Beijing, which agreed to cancel a multi-product pipeline and scale down the ECRL.

“At the same time, we are very lucky because what has come out in the courts allows us to go back to China and say we didn’t know this before, now we know,” Jomo said, adding that Malaysia is fortunate to have good ties with China.

Jomo said last week that the government should not salvage the mega-rail project following the emergence of evidence in court on how the project was used to bail out 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

“But I think what Datuk Amhari (Najib Razak’s former special officer Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin) has said is very clear, it is not the present government that was involved, even most of the members of the previous government don’t know what was going on. So basically, we have a bunch of people who took advantage,” he said.

Jomo said he believes that Xi’s government will not want to be associated with such issues, hence there is a possibility to re-open the talks, provided they are done correctly.

“I’m not authorised to speak (or) go and negotiate for the Malaysian government but I think there are many people who are quite competent in this country, who have the relevant experience, who can negotiate this matter without embarrassing China at all because I don’t think the central government of China or the party leadership wants to be associated with it,” said the former member of Council of Eminent Persons. – September 25, 2019.