Brunei and Malaysia have agreed to form a Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) to smoothen cross-border travel. Just like the one with Singapore, this will allow vaccinated citizens to move between the two countries without the hassle of going through quarantine.
The agreement includes a proposal for four VTL flights a week while a land VTL is also being considered although neither proposals have been given a definitive starting date with relevant ministries still ironing out the SOPs. On top of that, both countries will mutually recognise each other’s national digital COVID-19 vaccination certificates, namely MySejahtera and BruHealth.
According to Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, there are about 25,000 Malaysians currently working or studying in Brunei. Sarawak Tourism, Creative Industry, and Performing Arts Minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah commented that reopening the borders would be able to revive tourism in the state back to pre-COVID levels as most visitors to Sarawak were from Brunei.
As for other countries, Malaysia has been in discussions with Indonesia and Thailand about implementing a VTL, but those have yet to be materialised. On the bright side, Thailand will soon be reopening its land borders to Malaysian tourists next month under its Test & Go scheme. While a complete Malaysian border reopening has been proposed by the National Recovery Council for March, it is still in the discussion stage and waiting to be approved by the Cabinet.
(Source: Ismail Sabri Yaakob/Facebook.)
