Japan has reiterated its keenness to be involved in the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high speed train project, the first in South-East Asia, said Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

This was stated to him by Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their meeting on the sidelines of the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai today, he told Malaysian journalists.

Muhyiddin, who arrived in Sendai on Friday for a four-day working visit to Japan, was present for the conference yesterday and today.

The conference, about 380km from Tokyo, started on Saturday and ends on Wednesday.

The venue of the conference is in the centre of the Tohoku region, which was shaken by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami which resulted in the Fukushima nuclear reactor crisis.

'Open tender, but we like Japan's system '

Muhyiddin said the high speed train project was decided by the governments of Malaysia and Singapore to be implemented by the private sector and the offer for it would be made via an open tender.

"Generally, we are attracted by the Shinkansen system (Japan's high speed train system). The system is efficient, (uses) sophisticated technology and safety-wise, yet to record an accident or death.

"All these will be taken into account in our assessment in selecting the

party to be involved when the tender is opened," he said.

In 2013, Singapore and Malaysia agreed to build a high speed train track by 2020 which would reduce travel time between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to just 90 minutes.

In November last year, Shinzo Abe had stated Japan's interest to take part in the international bidding process for the project to Prime

Minister Najib Abdul Razak at a bilateral meeting between the two

leaders on the sidelines of the 25th ASEAN Summit in Myanmar.

- Bernama