Singapore in Discussion with Malaysia to open up land borders to other transport modes for vaccinated travellers
On Mar 8th, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said it is working with its Malaysian counterparts to allow vaccinated travellers to cross the land border using other transport modes.
Earlier, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has announced that the country will lift its border restriction completely on Apr 1st as the country begins the “Transition to Endemic Phase”.
Fully vaccinated travellers do not need to undergo any quarantine upon entering Malaysia. They only need to undergo a COVID-19 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test two days before departure and a professional COVID-19 rapid test kit-antigen (RTK-Ag) test within 24hours after arrival in Malaysia.
In response to that, Singapore’s MTI said, “we are currently working with our Malaysian counterparts to expand VTL (Land) in a safe and progressive manner, so as to resume more trade, economic and social activities between the two countries.”
“We will share more details when ready,” it added.
Currently, Singapore has vaccinated travel lanes (VTLs) for both land and air with Malaysia.
For land VTL, travellers are allowed to commute between Singapore and Johor Bahru by taking the designated bus services across the Causeway. VTL passes can be bought via the Causeway Link website. The bus services are operated by two companies, Transtar Travel and Handal Indah.
For air VTL, there are designated flights travelling between Changi Airport and Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
From Mar 16th, there will be additional to Malaysia's air VTL from the existence Kuala Lumpur to include Penang, beginning with four flights daily each way between Singapore and Penang.
The Singapore government makes it compulsory that all travellers must obtain a negative pre-departure polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result or antigen rapid test (ART) result within two days before leaving for Singapore.
Upon arrival in Singapore, all travellers must take a supervised self-administered ART at Woodlands and Queen Street Bus Terminals, or choose to take the test at any quick test centre or combined test centre within 24 hours.
