Singapore ― Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said that Singapore and Malaysia share a common desire to re-establish connections, with discussions to reopening borders currently ongoing.
Authorities hope to start taking concrete actions to reopen borders as soon as possible, said Mr Ong, speaking in a press conference held by the multi-ministry task force for Covid-19.
Additionally, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong and Transport Minister S. Iswaran said that both countries are in the middle of discussions, with Singapore continuously updating its border measures.
Their statements were in response to Malaysian government news agency Bernama inquiring on Singapore’s plan on border measures for Johor, reported Straits Times on Saturday (Oct 9).
It was highlighted during the conference that Johor has ramped up vaccination initiatives, hoping to loosen up movement between its people and Singapore, given its importance to the state’s economy.
However, Malaysia currently sits at Category IV, the highest level on Singapore’s classification of Covid-19 risk of transmission per country.
It was reported in September that Johor would achieve a vaccination rate of 80 per cent by the end of October, according to Johor’s chief minister.
As of Saturday, Johor is at 62.3 per cent for those fully vaccinated, slightly below the 64.4 per cent for Malaysia.
“As the situation in Malaysia improves, I have no doubt that over time, it will be reflected in the category that it is,” said Mr Wong, noting that authorities review the categories fortnightly, basing it on the country’s rate of infection and vaccination status of its different territories.
Mr Wong also noted that travel arrangements on the Causeway between Johor and Singapore had to be treated differently compared to air travel.
“We understand that there are people on both sides of the Causeway who would like to travel to visit families or even to travel for work, but the volume of people who will be travelling between both sides can be very large if you look at what it was before Covid-19,” said Mr Wong in a Bernama report.
To date, there are approximately 100,000 Malaysians still in Singapore since the borders closed in March 2020.
Mr Wong reassured the public that as the situation in Malaysia improves, the country would be placed “to a different category before too long.”
Mr Ong highlighted that “Malaysia is on the downward trend of its wave (of infections). We are still on the upward trend, but let us hope in the very near future we can start having concrete actions to re-establish our connections and our border reopening.”
“It is really our common desire, and I think is both countries’ common desire to re-establish connection as early as we can,” he added. /TISG
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