Back Stories » Asia » Vietnam, Singapore Agree to Create Travel Bubble Next Year

Vietnam, Singapore Agree to Create Travel Bubble Next Year

Don't get your tourism hopes up though.

Straits Times reports that the governments of Vietnam and Singapore plan to create a "green lane" between the two countries for business and official travel next year.

Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday, December 15, that Foreign Minister Chee Wee Kiong and Nguyễn Quốc Dũng, Vietnam's vice minister of foreign affairs, have agreed to resume commercial flights, though specifics on dates and quarantine regulations still need to be worked out.

Both parties also agreed to continue the facilitation of repatriation flights for Vietnamese nationals in Singapore and vice versa, while also ensuring that supply chain links between the two nations are maintained.

Like Vietnam, Singapore has handled the COVID-19 pandemic well, with the exception of buildings where migrant workers live, where tens of thousands of cases have been detected. The island state's death toll, however, is only 29, and the government is further loosening social distancing regulations on December 28, according to Channel News Asia.

Singapore and Hong Kong had planned to launch a quarantine-free travel bubble at the start of December, but this initiative was delayed until 2021 due to a resurgence of the virus in the latter.

Vietnam has also struggled to resume inbound commercial flights due to confusion over quarantine costs and regulations for passengers.

[Top photos by Alberto Prieto and via Flickr user J. Philipp Krone]

Partner Content