Malaysia agrees to allow U.S. company to resume search for MH370 on "no cure, no fee": official

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian government has agreed to an offer by a U.S. exploration company to resume the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on a "no cure, no fee" basis, Transportation Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Saturday.

The U.S. company, Ocean Infinity, said earlier this week that it was "hopeful of receiving the final contract award for the resumption of the search for MH370 over the coming days."

Liow told reporters on Saturday that the Malaysian government has agreed to resume the search. "Now we have approached Australia and China, and we are working together to resume the search for MH370," he said.

Liow confirmed that the search would be on "no cure, no fee" basis, adding that the contract would be finalized by next week.

Ocean Infinity said it was moving Seabed Constructor, the vessel that the company uses for the search, towards the vicinity of the possible search zone given that the weather window would be relatively narrow.

MH370, carrying 239 on board, went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

The governments of Malaysia, Australia and China suspended the search operation in January 2017 after almost three years' efforts in a 120,000-square-km area in the Southern Indian Ocean failed to find any sign of the wreckage of the plane. But a report from the Australian Transport Safety Board released later in the year pointed to a new search area where the plane could be found. Enditem