Daily Briefing: Singapore, Japan to resume essential business travel; Foodpanda, ST Engineering tests drone food delivery

And blockchain accelerator Tribe goes virtual for batch 3.

From ChannelNewsAsia:

Singapore and Japan have agreed to resume essential business travel, with an agreement expected to be finalised by early September, according to a joint statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan and his Japanese counterpart Motegi Toshimitsu.

Both countries said they welcomed ongoing negotiations on the setting up of a special "Residence Track" as early as September this year.

This will provide for a special quota of cross-border travel by business executives and business professionals (work pass holders) with the necessary public health safeguards in place, including a 14-day stay home notice upon arrival in the respective countries, said the statement.

The ministers also agreed on the "major points" of the Business Track (Reciprocal Green Lane), in which short-term business travellers would be subject to a controlled itinerary for the first 14 days of their trip with necessary safeguards in place.

"They tasked officials to finalise the agreement by early September, with Singapore being amongst one of the first countries with which Japan will begin this exchange of business travellers," it said.

Read more here. 

From ChannelNewsAsia:

Foodpanda signed an agreement with Singapore Technologies (ST) Engineering in March to use DroNet—ST Engineering’s drone network system—to test the delivery of light food items over distances of up to 3km.

The collaboration, dubbed PandaFly, aims to eventually see drones picking up and delivering orders to and from designated collection points islandwide, with one of Foodpanda’s 12,000 delivery riders completing the last mile of the delivery.

This is not the first time Foodpanda has experimented with the use of drones for deliveries—the Berlin-based food delivery giant first did so in Singapore in 2015.

Food delivery via drone is taking flight, with companies such as Uber and KFC experimenting with the use of the devices over the past year.

“The fundamental desire in doing delivery by drone for us is to increase the choice for customers,” said Foodpanda Singapore managing director Luc Andreani.

Read more here.  

From e27:

Singapore’s government-supported blockchain accelerator Tribe will be going virtual for its third cohort.

The batch consists of 10 blockchain companies operating in the health-tech, fintech, supply chain, data and cybersecurity industries.

The 10 startups enrolled in the programme include Accredify, Hashstacs, Humanscape, Merkle Science, Quantstamp, Chainstack, Sentient.io, Shalom International Movers, Tramés, and Xfers.

Read more here.