Malaysia and Singapore have been ‘steady, reliable’ partners throughout pandemic: Vivian Balakrishnan

RESTORING CONNECTIVITY FULLY

On Thursday, Dr Balakrishnan also highlighted that both countries were working towards restoring full connectivity in the near future. 

Singapore and Malaysia reopened their land borders to fully vaccinated travellers from Apr 1. Both countries also resumed more flight routes, allowing travellers to skip quarantine and COVID-19 tests.

Dr Balakrishnan said that both countries are now keen to bring up the level of air travel to pre-pandemic levels. 

“As far as air travel is concerned, we’re now up to about 180 flights a week to five destinations across Malaysia. This is only at about 40 per cent of what was the level of flight connectivity before the pandemic, when we had about 500 flights a week,” the minister noted. 

“We hope that in the next few weeks and months, we will see a full resumption of air connectivity,” he said. 

He added that traffic at the land borders have increased in recent weeks, especially during the long weekends. However, he said that this was not quite at the level before COVID-19 and was optimistic that it would increase over time. 

Dr Balakrishnan added that both countries are also exploring the possibility of ferry services between Tanah Merah ferry terminal in Singapore and Desaru in Johor. 

He said that the ferry services are undergoing the “necessary checks and approvals” and that everything “should be in order shortly”. 

In late March, Malaysian Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong said that the Desaru Coast ferry terminal is fully operational and almost all approvals have been granted for services to be launched to Singapore. 

Subsequently, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said it will approve the proposed ferry service only when it is satisfied that the service can operate safely. 

Dr Balakrishnan said that he held discussions with Malaysian counterparts on various bilateral projects, including the possibility of reviving the terminated Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Rail (HSR) project.

“I think on the Malaysian side, they are exploring some new ideas. We will wait for their proposals to examine them with a fresh pair of eyes on a clean slate,” he said. 

The HSR project, which aimed to reduce travel time between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to about 90 minutes, was discontinued after the agreement lapsed on Dec 31, 2020.

In September 2018, both sides agreed to postpone the construction of the HSR until end-May 2020, after Malaysia under then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said he had considered Malaysia’s financial situation and how it would not benefit from the project.

Malaysia later requested a further seven-month extension to allow both sides to discuss and assess Malaysia’s proposed changes to the project.

But both sides could not agree on new terms, including Malaysia’s request to remove an assets company that would run the railway, and to let the agreement lapse.

Malaysia paid more than S$102 million in compensation to Singapore for the terminated project.

Since the termination of the agreement, Malaysia’s federal government conducted research to study the viability of a domestic HSR project between Iskandar Puteri in Johor and Kuala Lumpur.