Kuala Lumpur May 28 (IANS) Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Monday said that he will drop the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (KL-SG HSR) project as part of his efforts to restore the financial health of the country.
Mahathir made the remarks at a press conference saying it was "a final decision" to cancel the project but Malaysia still had to talk to Singapore over a penalty concerning the withdrawal Xinhua news agency reported.
Mahathir said the penalty was around 500 million ringgit ($126 million). In an interview with the Financial Times earlier he called KL-SG HSR as one of the "unnecessary projects".
To control public spending he also introduced a 10 per cent pay cut for his Cabinet ministers abolished some organisations and vowed to terminate the contracts of some 17 000 public employees.

--IANS soni/bg