Brunei Darussalam in 2021: The Battle against COVID-19 and a Year of Short-Lived Optimism

Summary

Optimism derived from the initially successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brunei was short-lived as new infections hit the country like a tsunami in the second half of 2021. Strict restrictions that had earlier been relaxed were reintroduced.

Amid the ongoing battle against COVID-19, Brunei assumed chairmanship of ASEAN in January 2021. The military coup in Myanmar in February put Brunei in a tight spot as all eyes were on ASEAN’s reaction to the crisis. Although an unusually bold decision was made to exclude Myanmar from the ASEAN Summit in late October hosted virtually by Brunei, on other occasions the ASEAN chair appeared to be lending legitimacy to the military regime.

Apart from addressing the issue of low growth rates as a result of overdependence on oil and natural gas, rising unemployment remains a major concern for the sultanate. In realizing economic diversification, a new blueprint, Towards a Dynamic and Sustainable Economy, unveiled in January, emphasizes the emergence of a strong private sector in Brunei. As a further move, the sultanate plans to nurture a digital economy.

Brunei maintained close security and defence relations with its traditional partners in 2021. The year also marked the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of relations between Brunei and the People’s Republic China (PRC). The PRC is Brunei’s largest foreign direct investor and has pledged to increase its investments, especially under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The COVID-19 Pandemic: The Tsunami of the Second Wave

Brunei began facing the COVID-19 pandemic when the first case was confirmed on 9 March 2020. It was triumphant in restraining the outbreak for much of 2020 and even into at least August 2021. In fact, as of 31 December 2020, Brunei only had 157 cases, with four deaths. For a country with a population of 429,999 (2021), this figure was indeed minuscule and spoke volumes of the government’s impressive efforts in curbing the pandemic. Further evidence of this was the absence of locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 for three hundred days by 4 March 2021. During this period, all infections that were reported in the country were imported cases.

As such, on 7 March 2021, the country’s Ministry of Health announced some relaxations to the restrictions that had been imposed to enable Bruneians to return to the new normal.