The Republic's National Development Minister, Lawrence Wong, said Singapore is addressing issues with Malaysia relating to employees who  travel every day through both land crossings.

Although both countries currently have tighter travel measures to curb COVID-19 spread, Wong said that they both would ultimately have to see how they can better accommodate employees.

“We will look at putting the necessary protocols whether it is testing of workers or for that matter having them subject to some quarantine arrangement,” he said at the Multi-Ministry Taskforce on COVID-19’s virtual press conference.

Wong was asked if the Republic was discussing with Malaysia the opportunity of workers to travel from Johor daily .

Wong, who is the co-chair of the Taskforce, stressed that “the bottom line is that there will need to be new safeguards and precautions.”

“”It will not go back to where it was before where you had such large volume of people moving up and down through our land crossings.

“I don’t think either side would want to see that happen without any safeguards of precautions in this new COVID-19 environment,” he said.

"The key is, I think, if we will have all that in place, we should be prepared that the volume of people sort of commuting daily will likely come down,” he added.

In addition to land crossing, Wong said that Singapore is talking to Malaysia about arrangements in green lane that could be carried out safely with essential air travel in limited numbers and safeguards.