Dr. Akhtar Gulfam Director News, Dawn TV + Daily Dawn
London: Singapore has become the only country in the world to have the strongest passport according to the passport index of ‘Henley & Partners’, which publishes the ranking of passports of countries around the world.
Singapore regained its title as the world’s most powerful passport in the latest rankings released on Tuesday.
Singapore also set a new record score whereby Singaporeans will now be able to access 195 out of 227 travel destinations worldwide without a visa.
Previously, the list included France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain with Singapore at number one, which has now moved to number two. These countries have visa-free access to 192 destinations.
Third on the Passport Index list are seven countries, including Austria, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Sweden. All these countries have access to 191 destinations without prior visa.
The UK is tied for fourth with Belgium, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland, despite its visa-free score falling to 190.
At the fifth place are Australia and Portugal, whose passports allow visa-free travel to 190 countries.
The sixth most powerful passports in the world are Greece and Poland. At the seventh place are Canada, Zekea, Hungary and Malta.
The US passport, on the other hand, has been in decline for a decade, currently falling to the 8th spot on the index. US citizens will now only be able to travel to 186 destinations without a visa. Britain and the US, considered former passport powerhouses, jointly topped the index 10 years ago in 2014.
In the passport index, Estonia, Lithuania and the United Arab Emirates are ranked 9th, while Iceland, Latvia and Slovakia are ranked 10th.
On the other hand, in the ranking of the 10 weakest passports in the world, Bangladesh and Palestine are at the 97th place, Libya and Nepal are at the 98th place, Somalia is at the 99th place, Pakistan and Yemen are at the 100th place, Iraq is at the 101st place, and Syria is at the 102nd place.
At the bottom of the list is Afghanistan at number 103, the lowest score ever in the index’s 19-year history.
The passport of the United Arab Emirates is ranked 9th in the Arab world. Emirates passport allows visa-free travel to 185 countries.
Among other Arab countries, Qatar is 46th, Kuwait 49th, Saudi Arabia 56th and Bahrain 57th, and Oman 58th.
According to the index ranking, Pakistani passport is at the 100th position among 103 countries, Pakistani citizens can travel visa-free to only 33 countries. In the same list, India is at the 82nd position, whose citizens can travel to 58 countries without a visa.
