Vietnam, Singapore eye resumption of flights

At a meeting in Hanoi on Monday Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son and his Singaporean counterpart, Vivian Balakrishnan, agreed to speed up the establishment of a working group for mutual vaccine certificate recognition so that their two countries could soon resume air travel to revive the economy.

Many Singaporean investors have also been eyeing the Vietnamese market in recent years while around 12,000 Vietnamese citizens live in Singapore.

Vietnam closed its borders and canceled all international flights in March last year, and allows in only certain categories of visitors with Covid-19 quarantine requirements. It recently increased the quarantine period to 21 days as it battled a more widespread outbreak triggered by new strains of the coronavirus.

Since last month visitors from Vietnam to Singapore have had to stay at home for 21 days at dedicated facilities and undergo a polymerase chain reaction test on arrival, 14 days later and before the end of the 21-day period as part of tougher pandemic prevention measures.