Religious and community leaders said they needed time to discuss the proposed Code of Religious Harmony so as to come up with good recommendations.
Venerable Shi Ming Yi, President of the Inter-Religious Organisation, said: "I would think it should be a bit shorter where people would memorise what is the whole code about and put it into practice.
"We have our different teachings and different ways of doing things but when it comes to peace, harmony and society, we should work as one to do this together. If we do not have all these things and start having conflicts between religions, it is going to cause chaos in a small country in Singapore."
E. Sukumar, Chairman of the Hindu Advisory Board, said: The principles that have been enunciated in the code by the PM, I think there's universal appeal, and we can see that in these troubled times, in recent times, we can see that it's already happening in Singapore where there is greater awareness for the need for religious tolerance and understanding.
Angie Monksfield from The Buddhist Society said: "The code of conduct should be applied to people of all religions because I think you could find extremists in every religion and these extremists pose danger to everyone else."
Khua Soon Khe, Executive Secretary of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan, said: "Religious tolerance and mutual respect with each other, I think, should apply to all Singaporeans. Just because of the recent bombings and the JI arrests, we shouldn't think the intended code of religious harmony is targeted at Muslims."
Mohd Alami Musa, Chairman of the Association of Muslim Professionals, said: "The code itself is a good piece of document. The challenge is how we can make it a reality, how could we concretise it in terms of our deeds and actions.
"So far we've been visiting each other's places of worship, but I think that's a good start, but I think it's not good enough, I think we have to go deeper.
"The code of practice provides the framework for religious community to go deeper into each other's understandings."