It’s the second time in a row that the Asian nation has come out on top in the index, which is revised quarterly.<\/p>\n
Japan retains its top spot as the world’s most travel-friendly passport thanks to the document’s access to 190 countries.
\nSouth Korea edged up the ranking from October’s index to join Singapore, offering access to 189 jurisdictions, thanks to a new visa-on-arrival agreement with India.<\/p>\n
That the top countries in the list are all Asian — along with other significant movers from the region — shows that many Asia nations are “sustaining a high comfort level with mutually beneficial economic migration,” Parag Khanna, the founder and managing partner of FutureMap in Singapore, told Henley & Partners.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in the region, China jumped almost 20 places in just two years, from 85th in 2017 to 69th this year.<\/p>\n
European countries also performed favorably, with European Union member states (along with Norway and the US) filling in the places behind the top three nations — although the UK continues to drop down the rankings, along with the US.<\/p>\n
The two held a joint-first position in 2015, according to a press release from the firm.<\/p>\n
Henley & Partners’ Group Chairman Christian Kalin, who created the Passport Index, says the ranking is a bright spot in an increasingly isolationist world.<\/p>\n
“The general spread of open-door policies has the potential to contribute billions to the global economy, as well as create significant employment opportunities around the world,” he said.<\/p>\n
“South Korea and the United Arab Emirates’ recent ascent in the rankings are further examples of what happens when countries take a proactive foreign affairs approach, an attitude which significantly benefits their citizens as well as the international community.”<\/p>\n
The index, compiled by global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners, says it bases its ranking on “exclusive” data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and “is enhanced by extensive, ongoing research by the Henley & Partners Research Department.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The country with the world’s most powerful passport in 2019 is … Japan. Again. That’s the view of the Henley Passport Index, which periodically measures the access to each country’s travel document affords.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[300],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-38748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-agencies"],"bylines":[{"id":300,"name":"Agencies","slug":"agencies","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":300,"name":"Agencies","slug":"agencies","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38748"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=38748"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=38748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}