General travel, including leisure, to New Zealand and Brunei, will soon be allowed for Singaporeans, as the city-state’s multi-ministerial Covid-19 task force relaxes border restrictions from September 1.
At the same time, travellers entering Singapore from either Brunei or New Zealand will not need to serve a stay-home notice upon arrival, provided they had remained in the country two weeks prior to their trip and were able to secure an air travel pass between seven and 30 days ahead of their intended date of entry into Singapore. They will also need to clear a Covid-19 test upon arrival at Singapore Changi Airport.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health said in a release that travellers needing Covid-19 treatment while in Singapore would have to bear their medical bills.
Stay-home notice for travellers coming in from low-risk countries and regions, such as Australia (excluding the state of Victoria), China, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, will also be cut from two weeks to one. A Covid-19 test will be conducted towards the end of the stay-home notice.
The latest announcement represents a further easing of border restrictions set up since the Covid-19 outbreak to curb cross-border transmissions.
Singapore currently allows essential travel between Malaysia and some Chinese provinces, and is in discussion with Japan on a business travel green lane.
Education minister Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the task force, said on Friday that Singapore remains cautious with her reopening strategy, and decisions will be based on “evidence and our risk assessment in these different countries”.
Wong also noted that while outbound restrictions have been relaxed on Singapore’s part, Singaporeans looking to head to Brunei and New Zealand for leisure would need clearance from the two countries.
He shared that Singapore is in talks with Brunei and New Zealand to work out reciprocal arrangements for travellers.
Gregg Wafelbakker, general manager, Asia, Tourism New Zealand, told TTG Asia earlier this month that New Zealand tourism officials were exploring options for safe travel zones with the Singapore government.
Following the multi-ministerial Covid-19 task force’s decision, Singapore Airlines (SIA) Group issued a statement to express support. It noted that the “recovery of air travel and airfreight is a necessary catalyst for the recovery of global trade and economies severely impacted by Covid-19”.
“Today’s announcement is an important step towards the gradual rebuilding of the Singapore air hub. The SIA Group will continue to work closely with the Singapore government and all stakeholders to support this,” the statement noted.
SIA Group emphasised that health and safety for all its stakeholders remain a priority. To that end, in-flight product offerings and end-to-end service delivery have been modified to take in health and safety measures.
“The SIA Group will continue to closely monitor the demand for international air travel, and be nimble and flexible in adjusting our capacity to match this,” it added.
China’s Alibaba Group posted strong revenue growth in the quarter ending June, largely driven by its core commerce and cloud computing businesses, with revenue swelling 34 per cent year-over-year to US$21.8 billion.
The company’s domestic commerce business has also fully recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels across the board, while cloud computing revenue grew 59 per cent year-over-year, said Maggie Wu, CFO of Alibaba Group.
Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was US$6.7 billion, up 124 per cent year-over-year, mainly due to a net gain arising from the increase in the market prices of its equity investments in publicly-traded companies.
“Alibaba delivered excellent results this past quarter. We were well positioned to capture growth from the ongoing digital transformation, which has been accelerated by the pandemic, in both consumption and enterprise operations,” said Daniel Zhang, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group.
“We mobilised our entire digital infrastructure to support the economic recovery of businesses across a wide range of sectors, while broadening and diversifying our consumer base by addressing their changing preferences in a post-Covid-19 environment.”
The company reported core commerce revenue of US$18.9 billion, up 34 per cent year-over-year, with continued rapid growth and increased penetration in less-developed areas. Revenue from the China commerce retail business was US$14.3 billion), up 34 per cent year-over-year, marking a strong recovery compared to the March 2020 quarter.
The number of annual active consumers on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces reached 742 million, an increase of 16 million from the 12-month period ended March 31, 2020. Meanwhile, mobile monthly active users on its China retail marketplaces hit 874 million in June 2020, an increase of 28 million as compared to the previous quarter.
Lazada, Alibaba’s South-east Asia e-commerce business, achieved over 100 per cent quarterly order growth, reflecting strong consumer demand in the general merchandise, FMCG and electronics categories.
Revenue from the cloud computing business was US$1.7 billion, up 59 per cent year-over-year due to increased revenue contributions from the public and hybrid cloud businesses. According to an IDC report in July 2020, Alibaba Cloud was the largest public cloud service provider in China, as measured by market share for IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) as well as PaaS (Platform as a Service) for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.