Malaysia, S'pore talk again on 'crooked' bridge

Malaysia, S'pore talk again on 'crooked' bridge

Clarence Fernandez, Reuters/Kuala Lumpur

Singapore and Malaysia began talks in the Malaysian capital on
Tuesday to try and agree on plans for a bridge to replace a
causeway between the neighbors, a project that occasionally
inflames tempers on both sides.

Malaysia-Singapore ties have warmed since Malaysia's outspoken
former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad handed power to Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi late in 2003.

The new cordiality has inspired efforts to settle several
outstanding issues, the bridge among them.

Officials of the two countries would begin talks on Tuesday,
said Singapore Minister for Foreign Affairs George Yeo, who is on
a two-day visit to Malaysia.

"This evening a team from Singapore is coming to talk to their
Malaysian counterparts about that very subject," Yeo told
businessmen who asked when the bridge project would be completed.

"But of course in any such discussion, it's got to be mutually
beneficial," he said. "It should take into account the needs and
constraints on both sides. It should not be a bridge to nowhere."

He declined to give additional details.

Singapore lies at the southern tip of the Malay peninsula. The
two nations separated in 1965 after a brief union in the years
following independence from Britain and have deep economic ties,
although relations have sometimes been prickly.

Former premier Mahathir unveiled the plan for a bridge to
replace half the 500-meters causeway between the neighbors in
2003, after Singapore rejected a plan to jointly build a bridge
to replace the entire causeway.

Malaysia says its bridge, called the "crooked" bridge because
of its convoluted design, would boost traffic flow and ease jams
on its side of the 81-year-old causeway, allow ships to pass
beneath and improve water quality by unblocking the strait.

Singapore opposes the original plan on cost grounds and has
raised its own environmental concerns over the crooked bridge,
which would merge with Singapore's half of the causeway.

In Singapore, analysts said the bridge could threaten the
island's economy.

"As it is, the Singapore port is already facing stiff
competition from the port in Tanjung Pelepas," Ho Khai Leong, a
research fellow at the city-state's Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies, told Reuters, referring to a Malaysian port.

"If Malaysia gets its way with building the bridge, then
Singapore's port will lose more business," Ho added.

In 2002, the Port Authority of Singapore lost two key clients
-- Taiwan's Evergreen Marine and Maersk Sealand, the world's
largest container shipping firm -- to the Port of Tanjung Pelepas
(PTP), prompting PSA to shelve listing plans.

Although PTP handled just four million 20-foot equivalent
units (TEUs) last year, against PSA's 33.1 million, its volume
growth since its birth in 1999 has made Singapore increasingly
wary.

As talks on the bridge have dragged on, Malaysia has gone
ahead with a key part of its 1.1 billion ringgit (US$292 million)
project, building a customs, immigration and quarantine center at
Johor Baru, the main gateway to Malaysia from Singapore.

Malaysia says it hopes to work with Singapore on the plan for
the bridge as one of a series of issues it wants to settle.