The impending Tanjung Pagar land swap in Singapore involving KTMB’s prime real estate is expected to be finalised on or before June 24 when Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is visits Putrajaya to ink the deal.

Khazanah Nasional Bhd Managing Director Azman Mokhtar today said both sides have demonstrated a strong desire to settle the 20-year-old matter and move forward.

azlan "Recognise it is a positive sum game [...] it is not I win you lose or you win I lose, it is both win," he said when met at the Subsidy Rationalisation Lab’s open day at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre earlier today.

Azman, however, remained mum on details regarding the deal, declining to confirm if the actual swap will include two lots in Singapore’s upmarket Marina Bay area as speculated.

The proposed land has come under fire from PAS Shah Alam parliamentarian Khalid Samad who pointed out the deal was done without consulting Parliament and the fact that the area was is in Singapore’s gambling hub only added insult to injury.

Azman said the Malaysia-Singapore joint statement on the matter did specify some options.

"Some options do include some land that can be considered in Marina Bay but it could also include other areas [...] those are options. The options mean you could [...] all those options are being NONE evaluated.

Joint-venture company

"The important point to know is that the transaction is a good one from the commercial, connectivity perspectives. The breakthrough allows investments from both sides," he explained.

The undeveloped status Tanjung Pagar, which house a KTM railway station, land has been a sore point for both Singapore and Malaysia for almost 20 years since the Points of Agreement was first inked between Malaysia’s then finance minister Daim Zainuddin and Singapore’s then premier and now Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew in late 1990.

NONE Various counter-proposals were thrown across the straits in the following years including a request from Malaysia’s fourth prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad to package a land swap with additional land, rights over aerospace and a new water deal.

Under the recently announced deal, the KTMB land in Tanjong Pagar, Kranji and Woodlands as well as three pieces of additional land in Bukit Timah, totalling 271 hectares would be handed over to the Malaysia-Singapore joint-venture company to be known as M-S Pte Ltd, which would be set up before Dec 31 this year.

Sixty per cent of the equity in M-S Pte Ltd would be held by Khazanah Nasional Berhad, while the rest would be held by Temasek Holdings Limited, the main investment arm of the Singapore government.