By Massita Ahmad<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s Multi Ministry Taskforce (MTF) on COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At present no private vehicles are allowed to travel over land between the two countries except for public buses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c… when we are ready we will make the necessary and appropriate announcement,\u201d said Gan who is also the Trade and Industry Minister, at a virtual press conference Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The MTF was asked when will private vehicles to be allowed into both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Minister for Transport S Iswaran said Singapore would deepen and extend VTLs with ASEAN neighbours that include Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are in advanced discussions to expand the VTLs to Penang and Kota Kinabalu. We look forward to launching these soon,\u201d he said at the same press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Singapore had commenced the VTL by air and land with Malaysia from Nov 29 last year but on a limited scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the Stay-Home Notice (SHN) duration will be standardised to 7 days across all country\/region risk categories in view of Omicron\u2019s shorter incubation period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To facilitate vaccinated travel, the republic will restore and progressively increase VTL quotas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The air VTL quotas will be fully restored with immediate effect while the land quotas will be fully restored from Feb 22, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sale of bus and flight tickets for the land and air VTL was temporarily suspended last Dec 23, and resumed on Jan 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s Multi Ministry Taskforce (MTF) on COVID-19. At present no private vehicles are allowed to travel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":78526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,288,286,318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164178"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=164178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}