KUALA LUMPUR, November 19 — Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution said that the vendor for the Malaysia-Singapore QR code immigration clearance system will be appointed by the end of this financial year.

He also said that although the pilot project was only carried out for bus passengers and motorcyclists at the checkpoint, the QR code system will be rolled out in phases for other modes of transportation as well.

"So, for this financial year, we will finalise the vendor appointment for acquisition. A budget of RM20 million has been prepared for this,” Saifuddin told parliament this morning.

The senator also shared that this was decided in a meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof yesterday.

From January 1 until October 31, this year, the traffic through the Sultan Iskandar building was at 83.4 million and 34.5 million at the Sultan Abu Bakar complex.

"The trend shows an increase of 17 per cent every year,” he added.

At a press conference yesterday, Saifuddin said that the QR code system had significantly reduced the time required for travellers during peak hours after analysing the data.

Previously, a QR code system called MyRentas underwent trials at the Malaysia-Singapore border crossings at the Sultan Iskandar Building and the Sultan Abu Bakar Complex at the Second Link.

During the system’s trial phase at BSI, MyRentas recorded almost two million transactions and successfully reduced bus users’ waiting times during peak hours from 120 minutes to 15 minutes.

The statistics were uploaded to Parliament’s website in July this year.