Singapore plans to set up pilot programs to allow business travelers vaccinated against COVID-19 from some countries to enter on controlled itineraries next month as it charts a cautious international reopening that extends to local restrictions.
Singapore is in talks with Germany, Australia, Canada and South Korea to be the first batch of countries for such arrangements, although it is also looking at the possibility of leisure travel, Singaporean Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong (顏金勇) told Bloomberg News in an interview yesterday.
Factors such as infections, vaccination rates and the ability to control outbreaks would be considered in these discussions, Gan said.
Photo: AFP
“In the pilot, we are likely to focus more on business travel, but beyond business travel, we are also looking at the possibility of leisure travel, particularly to those safer countries, those with a lower infection rate,” he said. “We will need to pilot-run some of this with an organized itinerary, probably with organized tour groups, to be able to find ways to bubble-wrap them for the journey and with specific designated places that they can visit.”
Singapore — which has a vaccination rate that is among the world’s highest, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker — is aiming to reopen to the world and emerge from the pandemic relatively unscathed by high hospitalizations and death tolls.
At 76 percent full inoculation, the country is on track to be ahead of its schedule to reach 80 percent by early next month, a milestone where officials have pledged to ease more measures, particularly on border reopening.
Still, such relaxation will be done in a careful manner and local rules on gathering sizes could still be intact for a while as more people enter the country, Gan said.
“The two are interlinked,” he said. “If we continue to keep our borders closed and just among ourselves, I think we will be quite ready to open up domestically, but because we are going to open up the border, which is a major effort, and potentially a higher-risk measure, therefore we will need to ensure that domestically within the community we continue to have reasonable basic safe management measures in place.”
Already, Singapore is loosening controls to allow vaccinated foreign workers to enter the country, as well as plans to bring in laborers in the construction sector.
“We may be the first country who has a high vaccination rate, and yet taking a step-by-step approach to reopening,” Gan said. “We are seeing whether this approach in fact is a better approach to allow a safe opening, yet at the same time allow more activities to happen.”
Such a move might ultimately prevent a reversion to lockdown measures, which have frustrated businesses and residents, he said.
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