Republic of China passports ranked as the 32nd-most “powerful,” as its holders have visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 146 destinations, a survey released on Tuesday by London-based Henley & Partners showed.
Taiwan fell one spot on the list from the previous quarter, but remained ahead of China at No. 72 with accessibility to 71 destinations, the Henley Passport Index showed.
Japan topped the list for the third consecutive year with access to 191 destinations, followed by Singapore in second place with 190 destinations, and South Korea and Germany in third with 189, the survey showed.
Italy and Finland held the fourth position (188 destinations), while Spain, Luxembourg and Denmark shared fifth place (187) and Sweden and France were sixth (186), it showed.
Completing the top 10 were Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland and Austria at seventh (185); the US, UK, Norway, Greece and Belgium at eighth (184); New Zealand, Malta, the Czech Republic, Canada and Australia at ninth (183); and Slovakia, Lithuania and Hungary at 10th (181).
At the bottom of the list was Afghanistan, with its passport holders allowed access to only 26 countries and territories, it showed.
Henley & Partners chairman Christian Kalin, who created the passport index, said the latest ranking provides a fascinating insight into a rapidly changing world.
“Asian countries’ dominance of the top spots is a clear argument for the benefits of open-door policies and the introduction of mutually beneficial trade agreements,” he said.
“Over the past few years, we have seen the world adapt to mobility as a permanent condition of global life. The latest rankings show that the countries that embrace this reality are thriving, with their citizens enjoying ever-increasing passport power and the array of benefits that come with it,” he added.
The index, one of several created by financial firms to rank global passports, is based on International Air Transport Association data and covers 199 passports and 227 travel destinations.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,