<![CDATA[Singapore soothes food and labour supply fears as Malaysia border closure looms]>
Singapore authorities on Tuesday assured its 5.7 million residents that it had "months" of stockpiled fresh and packaged food, and would help businesses cope with disruptions, as Malaysian authorities confirmed there would be no exceptions to its border closure to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Malaysia had assured him that the two-way flow of goods and cargo, including food supplies, would not be affected but workers living in the southermost state of Johor would have to comply with the sweeping restrictions on the movement of Malaysians that will kick in on Wednesday and last till the end of the month.
The decision will put a further dent in Singapore's trade-dependent economy that has 3.7 million workers and is already taking a hit from the pandemic.
Malaysia and Singapore, which split after a brief union in the 1960s, have close economic ties and share a border. Every day, about 415,000 people use two land checkpoints for work and school and to ferry supplies into the city state.
Chua Hak Bin, a senior economist at Maybank in Singapore, said banning daily commuters"cut off almost one-tenth of Singapore's force, hurting both the manufacturing and services industries", according to Bloomberg.
But with Malaysia's coronavirus cases rising to 553 on Monday to be the highest in Southeast Asia, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced measures including an overseas travel ban for residents, a 14-day self-quarantine order for returning residents, restrictions on public gatherings and the closure of most businesses except those selling food and everyday necessities.
Singapore's Ministry of Manpower on Tuesday said it would help firms that employed Malaysians and were providing essential services in the city state, such as health care, cleaning, waste management, logistics and transport.
The government would look into providing financial support for companies that needed to house affected workers, and was in discussions with hotel and dormitory providers on providing low-cost rental. More details would be released soon, it said in a statement.
"Our objective is to minimise any impact on the delivery of services for our people," the ministry said.
Some 415,000 people cross the land borders between Singapore and Malaysia every day. File photo: AFP alt=Some 415,000 people cross the land borders between Singapore and Malaysia every day. File photo: AFP
Earlier, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing stressed that Singapore had three months' worth of carbohydrates such as rice and noodles, and more than two months' worth of proteins and vegetables in its stockpile. Eggs were locally produced and authorities were looking into bringing in supplies from other countries, he said.
"Disruption of supplies from Malaysia is one of the contingency scenarios that we have planned for over the many years," Chan said in an early morning media briefing.
"As such, we have plans to manage this contingency with a combination of stockpiling, building up our domestic production capacities, and diversifying our supply sources to many countries," he said, adding that Singapore authorities were in contact with their Malaysian counterparts to iron out details on Tuesday.
Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of its food from across the world. While it is unclear what percentage of food supplies come from Malaysia, government statistics show that in 2018, Malaysia supplied vegetables, cooking oil, fruits, eggs, chicken, milk, sugar, fish, duck and pork to its neighbour.
The city state has in recent years been diversifying its sources, adding new supply countries and ramping up local production. In 2018, it announced an ambition to produce 30 per cent of what it needs by 2030.
Chan urged Singaporeans not to hoard supplies " when Singapore raised its national alert level while it battled with a surge in virus cases in February, residents thronged supermarkets over a weekend and cleared shelves of items from vegetables to toilet paper.
While some Singapore residents raced to 24-hour supermarkets after the Malaysian announcement, others cut short their holidays in Malaysia to hightail it back to Singapore.
Homemaker Jean Ngiau, 71, for example, was in Malaysia's southernmost city of Johor Baharu from Sunday to visit her son and was intending to stay until Thursday. But upon hearing about the lockdown, she left Malaysia close to midnight on Monday and spent more than an hour in a traffic jam at one of the two land checkpoints.
"I was in my nightie and about to go to bed when I heard the news. I called my husband who was out and said, 'Look, we're going home'," she said.
Ngiau, a Malaysian and Singapore permanent resident, is a frequent traveller to Malaysia and said she rushed back to avoid any possible traffic snarls on Tuesday.
"I wasn't going to take any chances. I met a lot of people at the gas station who were all rushing back to Singapore," she said. "My grandkids are here, my cats are here, home is here."
Malaysian Razali Tompang, 42, an executive at an NGO in Singapore, expressed his shock at the decision by Malaysia's new government, which took power earlier this month.
"It's totally crazy, it's so irresponsible of them to do this," said Razali, who crosses the land border daily. "There are only 500 people infected with the virus in Malaysia, so it is weird to want to do this lockdown. It's very reckless of them to do this."
Razali, who lives in Johor Baharu just across the border from Singapore and works in the eastern part of the city state, said he had gone to work as usual on Tuesday but would bring his personal items from the office home just in case he could not continue going to the office.
RESTRICTING TRAVEL
Countries globally have begun restricting their citizens' movements through curfews and appeals to cancel large gatherings, while forcing entering travellers to place themselves in self-isolation for 14 days.
Singapore on Sunday announced that all travellers who recently visited the other nine countries that are part of Asean, Japan, Switzerland or Britain would be issued with a 14-day stay-home notice, though an exception would be made for some travellers from Malaysia.
When explaining why the two land crossings and one sea crossing with Malaysia were excluded from the border controls implemented to curb the spread of the Covid-19 illness, Singapore's Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong said the countries had a "high interdependency" and that "separate arrangements" would be worked out through a bilateral joint working group.
Singapore says the city state cannot afford to close its borders with its neighbour. Photo: AFP alt=Singapore says the city state cannot afford to close its borders with its neighbour. Photo: AFP
Singapore's new travel restrictions though triggered a flurry of activity within the region. For instance, Singapore Airlines' flights from Jakarta to the city state on Monday were sold out as travellers rushed to enter Singapore before the mandatory quarantine came into effect at 11.59pm on Monday night.
Singaporean photographer Foo Chee Chang, 34, was one of those rushing to return to the Lion City. He headed to Tioman, Malaysia, on Friday for a rock climbing trip and was supposed to go home on Wednesday, but he cut his trip short over worries that restrictions could be further tightened.
"I can't risk it because I've got work the next couple of weeks," Foo said.
He took a bus bound for Singapore at noon on Monday. When he passed through the Woodlands checkpoint, there were temperature scanners at the bus drop-off point to monitor travellers. He said he did not have to fill in additional forms.
Singapore's tighter travel restrictions came on the back of a recent spike in imported cases of the novel coronavirus. The Ministry of Health said that between March 13 and 14, they saw 25 new cases and more than three-quarters of those were imported cases. Of the imported cases, more than a quarter had come from Asean countries.
The ministry said "a number of these cases" entered Singapore to seek medical care. "[That] imposes a significant burden on Singapore's health care resources during this critical period when we are focused on containing the situation within Singapore," it said in a press release on Sunday when announcing the new measures.
Singapore now has 243 cases of the novel coronavirus. Of these, 109 have been discharged and 13 are in critical condition.
While experts acknowledged there was concern that workers from Malaysia might bring the virus into Singapore, they said the city state could not afford to close its borders with its neighbour.
Jeremy Lim, associate professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, said putting restrictions on air travel but keeping the land and sea borders open was a good balance. "It reduces the flow of all sorts of tourists, businessmen, and symptomatic foreigners coming to Singapore for Covid-19 treatment, which is the correct thing to do, but allows for the economy to continue."
DBS economist Irvin Seah said if the borders were shut, "this will be a self imposed recession", given the large numbers of Malaysians working in Singapore.
Seah said the most Singapore could do was to have stringent temperature checks at the border.
"We must remember that Singapore is ultimately a very small and open economy," he said. "There's no way we can shut ourselves off from the rest of the world like what some countries and cities have done. It's totally not feasible."
Singapore is already facing the prospect of a recession because of virus-related disruptions to the city's trade and tourism. Maybank was estimating a 0.3 per cent contraction in gross domestic product in 2020, with the potential for a more severe decline if the Malaysia shutdown takes a heavier toll on the economy.
"Malaysia and Singapore remain joined at the hip by geography and history," said Chua, the economist. "Malaysia's lockdown, especially on travel and non-essential business, could have severe knock-on effects on Singapore's economy."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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