Immigration News
Global Passport Ranking Released: Japan No.1, Taiwan No.32
Posted by Uni Immigration on 2020-07-08
(Reprinted from Central News Agency on January 8, 2020)
Global residency and citizenship consultancy "Henley Global Consultants Limited" (Henley & Partners) announced the 2020 Global Passport Index on the 7th. Japan’s passport ranks first in the world in terms of usefulness, and Taiwan ranks 32nd. Henley created the Henley Passport Index based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to measure the "usefulness" of a passport by the number of visa-free countries.
Japan leads the list with 191 visa-free countries, ranking first for the third consecutive year, followed by Singapore with 190 countries, and South Korea and Germany are tied for third place with 189 visa-free countries. Passports from Asian countries grabbed the top three spots.
The fourth place is tied with Italy and Finland with 188 countries. Spain, Luxembourg, and Denmark are tied for fifth place with 187 countries. Sweden and France tied for sixth place with 186 countries. Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, and Austria tied for seventh place with 185 countries.
The rankings of the United States and the United Kingdom both declined, but they still ranked in the top 10, with 184 visa-free countries, tied for eighth place with Belgium, Greece, and Norway. Since the United Kingdom and the United States jointly topped the list in 2015, their rankings have continued to decline.
Taiwan ranked 32nd with 146 visa-free countries, falling one place from the previous quarter. Tied with the Republic of Mauritius and its friendly allies Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
China, Indonesia and Kenya tied for 72nd place, with 71 visa-free countries.
Middle Eastern countries have benefited from trade and tourism. The United Arab Emirates has risen from 47th to 18th in the past 10 years. There are currently 171 visa-free countries. Afghanistan is at the other end of the spectrum, ranking at the bottom of the list with 26 visa-free countries, ranking 107th.
Henley CEO Christian H. Kaelin said the latest rankings reflect the rapid changes in the world. He said: "Asian countries occupy the top positions, clearly demonstrating the advantages of open door policies and multilateral reciprocal trade agreements. In the past few years, we have seen the world increasingly take on a globalized lifestyle. The latest rankings show that countries that can embrace this reality are prospering and their citizens benefit from increasingly valid passports."
The latest data shows that people move more frequently than in the past. The gap between Japan, the first place, and Afghanistan, the last place, is as much as 165 visa-free countries, which also shows the largest gap since the index began in 2006.
Parag Khanna, a best-selling Singaporean author, said that as the Sino-US trade war shows no signs of easing, Western investors have shifted their targets from China to Southeast Asia, resulting in waves of Western talents pouring into Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, stimulating population movement and promoting the development of visa-free policies.
He said that Thailand's rising ranking in the Henley Passport Index over the past few years is an example of this. Thailand has visa-free access to 78 countries, ranking 65th.
However, mobility between the UK and EU countries has been plunged into uncertainty due to the Conservative government's landslide victory at the end of last year.
Madeleine Sumption, a professor at Oxford University, said that the Conservative government has promised to introduce an Australian-style points system in immigration policy, which will be more open to non-EU citizens than the current system. As the UK's immigration policy is expected to undergo major changes, it is still too early to judge the impact of Brexit on population mobility.
(Editor: Feng Zhao)
* Source: Central News Agency
* Original link (click here)