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Hurrah, this is great news!

Malaysia and Thailand have agreed to open up their borders for 24 hours every day. This good news was announced by our beloved Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on 24 October 2018 during his visit to Thailand, reported The Malay Mail.

On top of that, the government will also be building two bridges which will connect Kelantan to the border. These new and upcoming bridges are expected to encourage trade between the two countries, explained Tun M during a joint conference with Thai’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

FYI, the joint conference took place at Thailand’s Government House in Bangkok.

Tun M noted that trade is a vital “stimulus for a country’s economy”. Therefore, he said that Putrajaya will definitely make sure that the project will be successful despite the problems with the road alignment.

Speaking to reporters present at the conference, he shared,

“We will work to see that borders, at Bukit Kayu Hitam, for example, will be made easy for access for Thai nationals and also Thai goods into Malaysia, and vice versa.”

“In order to ensure this is done, we will operate the border crossing for 24 hours a day, so there will be no delay when goods are transported.”

Tun M further added that the bridges will be built at two specific places in Kelantan, and they are:

Pengkalan Kubor

Sungai Golok

Prior to this, on 13 October 2018, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Mohd Azis Jamman said that the Thai government was not ready to open their borders for 24 hours of trading activities at the Bukit Kayu Hitam Immigration, Customs, Quarantine Security complex.

If you aren’t aware, the Thai-Malaysia borders currently run only for 18 hours daily. For instance, the Padang Besar-Thailand border checkpoint operates from 6am to 10pm daily.

On the other hand, in 2017, Malaysia agreed to open the borders starting in January 2019 to ease cross-border businesses. The borders are intended to be kept open to also increase tourism activities and to lessen traffic congestion at the complex.

This is such an amazing agreement because it will ease cross-border businesses and tourism activities, which are great for the country’s revenue. However, there are problems like dual-nationalities, smuggling and human trafficking that must be taken care of. So, as Tun M said, extra attention must be paid at the border-crossing areas to curb such problems.

How do you think the 24-hour borders will benefit the country? Let us know in the comments.

Also read: M’sians Will Have Their Own Parking Space at Thai Border by Mid-2018