The authorities in Singapore and Malaysia are planning to build a high speed link between the cities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to strengthen the links between the two countries.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the rail link will transform the two cities into "one virtual urban community" as it will allow the people to live in one city and work in another. He cited the example of the Eurostar train linking London and Paris. The high speed train will take just 90 minutes for the journey between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

He said that the residents of London and Paris can easily go to each other's city for business, meeting friends, having a meal and coming back on the same day. He was speaking at a joint press conference with the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak yesterday. The high speed trains are set to start running by 2020. Loong also said that the link is a strategic project for the two countries and it will change the way they people of the two countries look at each other.

"It's going to transform the way people interact, the intensity of our cooperation and the degree to which we become inter-dependent on each other and therefore have stakes in each other's success," he said at a joint news conference with Razak.