Viet Nam, Singapore mutually recognize vaccine passports
VGP – Viet Nam and Singapore have reached a bilateral agreement for mutual recognition of their COVID-19 vaccine passports.
State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc (L) and his Singaporean counterpart Halimah Yacob - Photo: VNA
During their summit meeting on Friday, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Singaporean counterpart Halimah Yacob applauded the aforesaid move, highlighting that it will help facilitate travel and trade between the two countries, thus contributing to the sides' post-pandemic recovery.
Singapore is the 15th country to have accepted Viet Nam's vaccine passport after Egypt, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Australia, Belarus, Cambodia, India, Japan, Maldives, Palestine, the Philippines, the U.K. and the U.S.
In addition, Singapore Airlines has become the first international carrier to announce resumption of commercial flights to the central city of Da Nang from March 27 after nearly two years of suspension.
On January 12, 2022, Singapore resumed commercial flights to Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City, with a frequency increasing from three to eight per week, using Boeing B787-10 and Airbus A350-900 aircraft.
Both President Nguyen, who is on a three-day state visit to Singapore, and President Halimah were satisfied with the robust developments in the Viet Nam-Singapore relationship, particularly since the two countries upgrade the bilateral ties to strategic partnership in 2013.
Noticeably, Singapore is the second largest foreign investor in Viet Nam with total registered capital of US$66 billion. The two-way trade hit US$ 8.3 billion and over US$ 783 million in January 2022, up 23.3 percent and 6.8 percent on year, respectively.
The two leaders agreed to soon resume the exchange of delegations at all levels, step up economic connectivity, and promote cooperation in digital transformation, innovation, manpower development, and green and inclusive growth.
On the occasion, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc also met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Speaker of the Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin.
President Nguyen and Prime Minister Lee voiced support for ASEAN's active role in assisting Myanmar to surmount the current crisis and promoting the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus reached at the ASEAN leaders’ meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, in April 2021.
They reaffirmed the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight in the East Sea; not using or threatening to use force; peacefully solving disputes on the basis of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; fully implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC); and negotiating to reach a substantive and effective Code of Conduct (COC) in the waters that matches international law, including the UNCLOS./.
