The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year.
The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa.
Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners.
Photo: Su Chin-fong, Taipei Times
Japan’s and South Korea’s passports, with access to 188 designations each, tied for second in the rankings.
Taiwan’s ranking peaked in 2014 at 24th after soaring from 55th in 2006.
Elsewhere in the region, Hong Kong passports were ranked 15th with visa-free access to 171 destinations, while the Macau passport ranked 32nd with access to 141 destinations, ahead of China at 59th, with its passport accepted without a visa in 81 destinations, the index showed.
Thai passports give access to 79 destinations, ranking 60th, while the Philippine passport enables holders to visit 64 destinations to rank 73rd and Vietnamese passports allow visa-free travel to 49 destinations to rank 86th.
Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland were tied for third place, with each passport allowing holders to visit 186 countries and territories.
Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway followed with their visa-free access to 185 destinations.
Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were tied for fifth place, with access to 184 destinations.
The US ranked 10th with visa-free access to 179 destinations, down one spot from January last year, following No. 1 peaks in 2006 and 2014.
UAE passports showed the largest improvement in access due to the Middle Eastern nation’s expansion of visa-free travel arrangements since 2006, while the UK passport showed the most significant decline in utility.
The passports of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq ranked bottom three respectively, granting visa-free access to 24, 26 and 29 destinations.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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