The last time the Singaporean borders were open was before the pandemic.
On 8 November, the prime ministers of Singapore (Mr Lee Hsien Loong) and Malaysia (Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri Yaakob) took to their official Facebook pages to make a very important announcement regarding travel between both countries. Both of them have issued statements saying that airway travel between both countries will be reopened starting 29 November for those who are fully vaccinated.
“Through a phone call, we realised the travel constraints faced by citizens of both countries which in turn disrupts their social relations.”
“Singapore and Malaysia have made good progress vaccinating our populations and managing the pandemic. So we agreed that it is timely to progressively resume cross-border travel between both countries.”
And with that, there will be a VTL (Vaccinated Travel Lane) between the Changi Airport and KLIA starting 29 November. With this VTL, fully vaccinated tourists can traverse between countries and replace the mandatory quarantine period with a Covid-19 test.
The VTL is only applicable for airway travel as of now, but both the prime ministers have said that they will be reopening land travel between the countries after taking into account the public health situation in both Johor and Singapore.
“We are also discussing reopening travel across the Causeway and the Second Link. We look forward to launching a similar VTL scheme between Singapore and Johor in the near future.”
Both Mr Lee and Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri believe that this move would “revive our economies, restore people-to-people ties, and strengthen our bilateral partnership”.
We certainly hope that the land VTL will be set up soon! Will you be going to Singapore soon? Let us know in the comments!
Also read: Singapore High Court Temporarily Suspends Execution of Malaysian Prisoner Nagaenthran
