By Massita Ahmad
SINGAPORE, Feb 17 (NNN-Bernama) — Singapore is currently in discussion with Malaysia on expanding Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) land arrangement for private vehicles, as well as private coaches, says Gan Kim Yong, the co-chair of the republic’s Multi Ministry Taskforce (MTF) on COVID-19.
At present no private vehicles are allowed to travel over land between the two countries except for public buses.
“… when we are ready we will make the necessary and appropriate announcement,” said Gan who is also the Trade and Industry Minister, at a virtual press conference Wednesday.
The MTF was asked when will private vehicles to be allowed into both countries.
Meanwhile, Minister for Transport S Iswaran said Singapore would deepen and extend VTLs with ASEAN neighbours that include Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.
“We are in advanced discussions to expand the VTLs to Penang and Kota Kinabalu. We look forward to launching these soon,” he said at the same press conference.
Singapore had commenced the VTL by air and land with Malaysia from Nov 29 last year but on a limited scale.
Singapore will also streamline its border measures for the VTL that would see, among others, Long-Term Pass Holders will no longer have to apply for a Vaccinated Travel Pass (VTP) or an Entry Approval to enter Singapore, from Feb 22, 2022.
Others include travel history requirement will be reduced from 14 to 7 days; the 7-Day enhanced testing protocol will be ceased; and VTL travellers will no longer need to perform an on-arrival Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test.
Meanwhile, the Stay-Home Notice (SHN) duration will be standardised to 7 days across all country/region risk categories in view of Omicron’s shorter incubation period.
To facilitate vaccinated travel, the republic will restore and progressively increase VTL quotas.
The air VTL quotas will be fully restored with immediate effect while the land quotas will be fully restored from Feb 22, 2022.
The sale of bus and flight tickets for the land and air VTL was temporarily suspended last Dec 23, and resumed on Jan 21.
However, the quota for the bus and flight tickets had been reduced by 50 per cent from the existing capacity for land and air routes.
— NNN-BERNAMA