- The island nation is the first Southeast Asian country to bar all visitors from the mainland
- The visa suspension will come into effect immediately, while the travel restriction will start at 11.59pm on Saturday
will close its borders to all new visitors from mainland China, including foreigners who have been there within the past 14 days, becoming the first Southeast Asian country to do so in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus
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The island nation has China as one of its biggest trading partners and is a popular destination for Chinese tourists. Figures from the Singapore Tourism Board showed that 248,000 travellers from the mainland entered Singapore last November, while 3.42 million mainland Chinese tourists visited in 2018.
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The visa suspension will come into effect immediately so travellers can be informed in advance, while the travel restriction will start at 11.59pm on Saturday.
The coronavirus has infected almost 10,000 people around the world, killing 213. The World Health Organisation has declared the outbreak an international public health emergency.
The move is an escalation of Wednesday’s announcement that Singapore was stopping the entry of new travellers who had been to Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak. Wuhan is Hubei’s capital.
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Residents and citizens of Singapore who have been to China will be able to come into the city state, but will be subject to a 14-day leave of absence during which they are encouraged to stay at home.
The move to close its borders to Chinese visitors comes on the back of local authorities’ assessment that more people in other parts of China are and will be affected by the virus.
The Singapore government will on Saturday announce a fiscal package to help businesses and citizens during the crisis.
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National development minister Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs a multi-ministry task force to deal with the virus, said the outbreak had already impacted the economy and “will be going on for some time”.
Said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong: “It’s going to hurt us. China is a very big source of tourists for Singapore. [With the outbreak], that’s tailed off already considerably.”
Lee said tourism from other sources would also be affected as people took precautions, pinpointing the food and beverage, travel and hotel industries as those that were “bound to be significantly affected”.
“I expect the rest of the economy also to be affected because with China in semi-lockdown mode now, their economy is bound to slow down and our economy is quite tightly engaged with theirs, they are our biggest trading partner.”
Source: SCMP
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