**UPDATED**
Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL)-like arrangement for land links would be opened in a few weeks according to the Singapore Multi-Ministry Taskforce on COVID-19 in a virtual press conference on Monday, 15th of November.
Co-chairman of Singapore COVID-19 Taskforce, Gan Kim Yong, who is also Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry said the discussion to commence the land links VTL has progressed well. “We are working to launch this soon hopefully in a few weeks’ time,” he added while saying that Singapore and Malaysia have strong links on many levels, particularly among the people.
“Many families have been separated from one another for a long time because of border restrictions. We hope this land link arrangement will allow many of them to be reunited, and they will be one of our priorities,” he said.
Malaysia’s High Commissioner to Singapore, Datuk Azfar Mohamad Mustafar, recently indicated that the appropriate agencies in Malaysia and Singapore were working out issues such as health, testing regimes, and cross-border processes.
“These are small concerns that I am confident can be resolved shortly,” he reportedly remarked, adding that reopening the land border would be more difficult than the VTL due to the high volume of commuters.
However, he warned that it would not be like the pre-COVID-19 era, where over 200,000 to 300,000 people travelled between the two countries on a daily basis.
“For a start, we would need to have a controlled opening. That means limiting the number of daily commuters,” he was quoted as saying.
He went on to say that, unlike the other cross-border travel schemes implemented during the pandemic, such as the Periodic Commuting Arrangement (PCA) and the Reciprocal Green Lane (RGL), the land VTL would be beneficial since it did not need quarantine on both sides.
In response to a question on whether the land VTL will first be available to individuals using public transportation such as trains and buses, Dr Azfar stated, “I think this will be easier to regulate than allowing people to drive their own vehicles and motorbikes across the Causeway.”
