Land acquisition issues surrounding Malaysia’s mass railway project, the country’s most expensive infrastructure project, will be resolved by the first quarter of next year, said the project’s manager.

Azhar Abdul Hamid, chief executive of Mass Rapid Transit Corp (MRT Corp), said the completion of the land acquisitions from private owners was vital to ensure the project will be delivered on time by mid-2017.

“We do have one or two areas where we have intense negotiations and engagements, but apart from that everything is going quite well,” Azhar told Reuters in an interview.

State-owned MRT Corp is the manager for the 51km Sungai Buloh to Kajang railway, one of Malaysia’s largest projects under the government’s US$444 billion Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

The government investment initiative aims to transform Malaysia into a high-income economy by 2020.

The mass railway project, launched by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in July 2011, has attracted companies including China Railway Construction Corp, China’s Sinohydro Group, Hyundai and Japan’s Taisei Corp to bid for the tunnelling works.

But it has run into problems, ranging from land acquisitions in Jalan Bukit Bintang and Jalan Sultan in Kuala Lumpur to reports of rising costs.

Newspaper reports have pegged the total cost at up to RM36.6 billion (US$12.18 billion).

Azhar said the cost will only be made public by the end of this year once key contracts have been awarded.

MRT Corp in February dished out the project’s first major construction contracts worth a total RM1.74 billion to IJM Corp Bhd and Ahmad Zaki Resources Bhd.

“We will be be announcing the award of the tunnelling project next,” he said. “We are in the process of evaluating the winner, and we hope to award it in April.”

MRT Corp has prequalified the Gamuda -MMC Corp consortium, China Railway Corp, Sinohydro Group, Gadang Holdings Bhd-Hyundai consortium and Taisei Corp for the tunnelling works, which accounts for up to 40 percent of the project’s total costs.

- Reuters