When Will Singapore Open Its Doors to the Rest of the World?

Singapore has announced opening its border to multiple selected countries as a major stepping stone to prepare for the “new normal”. Since Oct 19th, Singapore has been extending the Vaccinated Travel Lanes to the UK, US, Canada, Italy, Denmark, France, Spain, and the Netherlands providing that citizens from those eight countries are fully vaccinated and tested negative for Covid-19.

Despite having more than 3,000 cases among the 5.45 million population, which are mostly asymptomatic or mild yet still followed by a number of deaths, Singapore has one of the highest fully vaccinated rates in the world with 83% of the population. Therefore, some restrictions have been reinforced back such as the maximum number of dining pax per table and only fully vaccinated people are allowed to be back in the office or gather in public spaces. However, it’s not an attempt to bring down the number of cases, it’s just to buy time in preparation for the “new normal”.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that eventually, Singapore will stabilize although it may “take us at least three months, and perhaps as long as six months, to get there”.

Singapore has also recently lifted bans on travelers from South Asia and relaxed stay-home notice restrictions for those from Indonesia and Malaysia. Visitors from these countries are allowed to stay and remain at the acceptable places of residence of their choice for ten days. Visitors will have to wear an electronic monitoring device throughout the quarantine and they also must undergo the PCR test at the end of the SHN period.

What does this mean for Singapore?

For a little red dot that prides itself as the world’s most reliable transportation hub and relies heavily on international travel/tourism and external trading, the time for its economy to flourish once again is coming. It’s very promising news for Singapore’s Changi Airport and Singapore Airlines as well. Changi Airport, which was once buzzing with approximately 68.3 million passengers in 2019, has been hit severely by the pandemic. Singapore Airlines has experienced a $212 million annual profit loss in March 2020 alone, with Terminals 1 and 2 shuttered and just Terminal 3 functioning for less than half the flights it used to operate for on a daily basis.

Hopefully, with steady progress in opening up to more countries, Singapore will be back on its feet by the beginning of 2022. Not only will Singapore have a brighter future with much more incoming foreign manpower and international students post-pandemic, but tourists who have been yearning for the short getaways that they used to have several times a year prior to the pandemic may contribute significantly to the country’s GDP.