SINGAPORE: Singapore will reopen its borders to all fully vaccinated travellers from its General Travel Category countries or regions and will transition to a new Vaccinated Travel Framework from April 1, 2022.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said under the new Framework, all fully vaccinated travellers from any country or region will be allowed to enter Singapore quarantine-free, as long as they have not visited any countries or regions on the republic's Restricted Category in the past seven days.

"There are currently no countries or regions on the Restricted Category," CAAS said in a statement today..

With the transition to the Vaccinated Travel Framework, CAAS said all existing Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs) and Unilateral Opening (UO) arrangements will be retired.

Earlier today, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the republic will ease up cross-border travel substantially as the Omicron situation is now well under control.

Lee noted that arrivals from abroad constitute only a very small proportion of cases.

"We can therefore safely open up our borders. We will drastically streamline testing and quarantine requirements for travellers," he said in his address on the latest situation of COVID-19 here.

Among others, under the new Framework, fully vaccinated travellers will no longer need to take any COVID-19 tests in Singapore.

However, they must take a pre-departure test (PDT) within two days before departing for Singapore and obtain a negative test result.

This PDT can be a Polymerase Chain Reaction test, a professionally-administered Antigen Rapid Test (ART) or a self-administered ART that is remotely supervised by an ART provider in Singapore that provide such services.

Airlines will no longer need to operate designated VTL flights into Singapore, and fully vaccinated travellers may now enter Singapore on any flight.

Correspondingly, there will no longer be quotas applied on daily arrivals, said CAAS.

As for Vaccination Status, all vaccination certificates, regardless of place of issuance and whetherdigitally verifiable or not, will be accepted as proof of vaccination.

CAAS added that fully vaccinated travellers do not require any entry approvals to enterSingapore.

This means that travellers will no longer be required to apply for a Vaccinated Travel Pass (VTP) or Air Travel Pass (ATP) for entry into Singapore, it said.

-- BERNAMA