SINGAPORE: A cross-border travel scheme facilitating trips between Malaysia and Singapore for compassionate reasons such as death and visits to loved ones who are critically ill is set to kick off on May 17.
This was confirmed in a joint statement on Sunday (May 2) by Singapore’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan and his Malaysian counterpart Hishammuddin Hussein, following the latter’s two-day official visit to Singapore.Â
The two ministers agreed during the visit to work towards the resumption of essential cross-border travel in a gradual and safe manner, the statement said.
“To this end, the two Ministers agreed on the procedures and entry requirements for death and critically ill emergency visits between Singapore and Malaysia. This agreement provides a framework to facilitate travel between the two countries for compassionate and emergency reasons,” both ministers said.
“Details of the procedures and entry requirements will be released by the respective authorities of each country, namely the Department of Immigration of Malaysia and the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority of Singapore (ICA). The arrangement will be implemented from May 17 onwards,” they added.
Speaking after their meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Singapore on Sunday, Dr. Balakrishnan said that the scheme is “really needed because of the extensive ties of kinship between Malaysia and Singapore”.
Meanwhile, Dr. Balakrishnan maintained that both governments are working on the mutual recognition of health certificates, with respect to vaccination and COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test records.
Mr. Hishammuddin mentioned that both sides discussed the mutual recognition of vaccination certificates digitally through the respective countries’ COVID-19 applications – TraceTogether and MySejahtera.
“Mutual recognition of vaccination certificates … and MySejahtera, TraceTogether need to be compatible, and we hope that by the time the two Prime Ministers meet, whether at the end of the year during their informal meeting or maybe if time or situation permits, earlier, for Tan Sri Muhyiddin to be able to make an official visit to Singapore,” said Mr. Hishammuddin.