CHAIRMAN: DR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: PROF. KHALID MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

World / Asia

Singapore to seek more travel bubble arrangements

Published: 06 Dec 2020 - 12:13 pm | Last Updated: 07 Nov 2021 - 02:21 pm
People wearing protective face masks cross a street, in Singapore, November 30, 2020. Reuters/Edgar Su

People wearing protective face masks cross a street, in Singapore, November 30, 2020. Reuters/Edgar Su

Elizabeth Low/ Bloomberg

Singapore said it will keep searching for possibilities of travel bubbles with other regions even after an arrangement with Hong Kong suffered a setback, the Straits Times reported.

Potential partners could be the countries where the city-state has already opened its borders to, the paper said, citing Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung. Singapore currently allows short-term visitors from Australia, Brunei,

China, New Zealand and Vietnam to enter without having to be quarantined, though they must be tested upon arrival.

The Singapore-Hong Kong travel bubble, initially set for Nov. 22, will be reviewed between Christmas and New Year, Ong said. The arrangement was heralded as a pandemic world-first, allowing people to travel to and from the two places without the need for quarantine, but was delayed after a surge in cases in Hong Kong.

There were no new locally-transmitted infections in Singapore, the health ministry said Sunday, though five new imported cases were detected.