Three Malaysian towns to get more air links within BIMP-EAGA
WITH the inking of an agreement in Manila next month, three more Malaysian towns on Borneo will get additional flights, as they fall within the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said the three additional destinations in his country were Sandakan and Tawau in Sabah and Mulu in Sarawak. Malaysia currently has four cities with BIMP-EAGA air links – Kota Kinabalu, Labuan, Kuching and Miri.
Liow said the Protocol to Amend the MoU on Expansion of Air Linkages would be signed at the 22nd Asean Transport Ministers Meeting.
The protocol aims to provide more flexible approaches to sustain air services on existing routes and encourages the opening of more routes within BIMP-EAGA, which covers Brunei, Kalimantan, Sabah, Sarawak and the southern Philippines.
“Every year when we meet for BIMP-EAGA meetings, we would like to increase the number of townships that we’re going to fly to.
“In Asean, we practise an open-sky policy, but we only fly to certain destinations within Asean countries.
“Through BIMP-EAGA, we are opening up to all the small cities within this region, and this is something very crucial,” he told a press conference after attending the 11th BIMP-EAGA Transport Ministers Meeting in Kuching.
The protocol was one of several points Liow highlighted in a joint statement by the BIMP-EAGA transport ministers after their meeting.
Also present were Brunei Communications Minister Awang Mustappa Sirat, Indonesian Transportation Ministry secretary-general Sugihardjo, and the under-secretary of the Philippines’ Transportation Department, Felipe Judan.
Liow also said the BIMP-EAGA drivers’ logbook was launched at the meeting to ensure the safety of drivers and passengers as part of the monitoring mechanism in implementing the MoU on the Cross-Border Movement of Buses and Coaches signed in 2007.
The logbook will help to promote self-enforcement and regulation by bus operators and drivers while helping enforcement agencies and the operators to monitor the drivers, he said.
“They are cutting across different countries with different laws and regulations. With the logbook, we can monitor [whether the drivers] are abiding by the laws and regulations of that particular country,” he said.
