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Tuesday, February 18, 2025
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S’PORE LAUNCHING VACCINATED TRAVEL LANE WITH INDIA

The Ministry of Health said on 15 November that Singapore will be extending its Vaccinated Travel lane (VTL) scheme to more countries, including India, Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

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The VTLs with India and Indonesia are planned for launch on 29 November while the VTLs for the rest are planned to launch on 6 December.

India recognising S’pore vaccination certs

Minister of Transport S Iswaran said at the Multi-Ministry Taskforce press conference that Singapore and India have been in talks about the mutual recognition of vaccination certificates of both countries.

As of last Friday, India has been recognizing the certificates of vaccination by Singapore.

Iswaran said that fully vaccinated travelers from Singapore entering India will no longer be required to go through post-arrival tests home quarantine – they will only need to monitor themselves for 14 days upon arrival.

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Discussions to resume scheduled commercial flights with India are underway and at the moment, only government charter relief flights are allowed into India.

The aim is to resume 2 VTL flights per day from Chennai, Delhi. and Mumbai by 29 November.

Indonesia VTL

Iswaran added that the upcoming VTL with Indonesia will be a unilateral lane for now as Indonesia remains closed to general travel, but they have started opening their borders.

The hope is that they will reopen their borders to travellers from Singapore soon.

He added that there will be 2 daily services between Singapore and Jakarta, which will eventually be increased to four.

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Singapore to monitor global situation

Health minister Ong Ye Kung added that Singapore will continue to monitor the situation in the world closely and to make sure that travel doesn’t strain out healthcare system.

He noted the rising infections in Europe and said that the overall infection rates in other countries are comparable to Singapore.

Ong said that the task force didn’t deem it necessary to remove the VTL or reduce the VTL quotas with the Netherlands despite the social restrictions announced by their government in response to their infection rates experiencing an upward trajectory.

Ong said:

“Import cases or imported cases are still a very small fraction of total community cases and do not significantly affect local transmissions.”

“In addition, there is a quota of only six flights a week from the Netherlands and most importantly, VTL travellers are all fully vaccinated and tested before departure and upon arrival.”

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