HCMC – The southern provinces of Binh Duong, Long An, Dong Nai and Tay Ninh have thrown their support behind HCMC’s plan on the travel of laborers between HCMC and these four provinces. Today, October 6, the Long An government issued a document supporting HCMC’s plan, suggesting a simple travel pass for enterprises transporting their workers. The Departments of Transport of HCMC and its four neighboring provinces just need to issue identification certificates based on enterprises’ proposals to reduce procedures and the time needed to issue the certificates for individual vehicles, the local media reported. Binh Duong Chairman Vo Van Minh said the province agreed with HCMC’s plan to allow enterprises to use their vehicles to transport workers and experts from the four provinces to HCMC and vice versa. However, the province allowed only laborers in Thuan An and Di An cities to ride motorbikes to HCMC’s Thu Duc City. Besides the requirements proposed by HCMC, those traveling to/from Di An City must have negative Covid-19 test certificates. Meanwhile, a leader of the Dong Nai Department of Transport said that the province had yet to allow experts and laborers to use their personal vehicles to travel from HCMC and other provinces to Dong Nai. Tay Ninh Chairman Nguyen Thanh Ngoc shared the view, saying that the vaccination rate in Tay Ninh remained low compared with adjacent localities, so it must closely control personal vehicles entering the province. Enterprises must transport their laborers to easily control them and prevent the pandemic from spreading to industrial parks. The province will ease the control over personal vehicles when it has higher vaccination rate, Ngoc noted. The province also suggested that people traveling between the five localities should have received the first Covid-19 vaccine shot for 21 days, instead of 14, and the negative Covid-19 test certificates must be conducted within 72 hours, instead of seven days as proposed by HCMC. The HCMC government had earlier sent a plan on the travel of laborers between the city and its four neighboring provinces. Accordingly, enterprises will transport workers and experts from the four provinces to HCMC and vice versa. These workers and experts must have got at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot for a minimum of 14 days or should have recovered from the disease within six months and have a valid negative Covid-19 test certificate. They will undergo Covid-19 tests every seven days. Laborers meeting these requirements, according to the proposal, can also use their personal vehicles to travel between HCMC and the four neighboring provinces to work.