SINGAPORE - The deadline for tender submissions for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) Assets Company (AssetsCo) has been extended to Dec 28, 2018.

The initial deadline for the submission of bids for the AssetsCo tender was June 29. The tender was jointly called by MyHSR Corporation (MyHSR Corp) and SG HSR on Dec 20, 2017.

AssetsCo will be responsible for the designing, building, financing and maintaining of all rolling stock and rail assets for the KL-Singapore HSR project. This project aims to facilitate seamless travel between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and bring the people of both countries closer together.

The Singapore and Malaysian governments signed a bilateral agreement on Dec 13, 2016, to embark on the HSR project.

The extension of the deadline was to provide bidders with additional time for the development of their tender submissions, MyHSR Corp and SG HSR said in a press statement on Thursday (April 19).

"After careful consideration, we have extended the tender submission deadline by six months, in view of the complexity and scale of the project. We look forward to receiving high quality and competitive proposals from all the bidders," MyHSR chief executive Mohd Nur Ismal Mohamed Kamal and SG HSR managing director Rama Venkta said in the statement.

Despite the deadline extension, the HSR Express Service - which will cut travel time between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to 90 minutes - is still set to commence on Dec 31, 2026.

Eight stations are to be built along the 350km line - in Bandar Malaysia, Sepang-Putrajaya, Seremban, Melaka, Muar, Batu Pahat, Iskandar Puteri and Jurong East on the Singapore end.