UAE passport ninth most powerful

EMIRATIS CAN TRAVEL TO 157 COUNTRIES WITHOUT PRIOR VISAS

The UAE passport is now the world’s ninth most powerful, offering ease of travel to its citizens. Yesterday, Dr Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said in a tweet: “The UAE passport has ranked at 9th position in the Global Passport Index, and now citizens can enter 157 countries without a prior visa.”

As per the current index, UAE citizens can travel to 112 countries without visas and in 45 countries they can get visas on arrival, which makes a total of 157 countries where prior visas are not required for Emiratis. Still, citizens need to obtain prior visas for 41 countries.

The Passport Index is a popular online interactive tool, which collects, displays and ranks the passports of the world.

It is a real-time global ranking of the world’s passports, updated as frequently as new visa waivers and changes are implemented, the index website says.

Top five target

In 2017, the UAE announced its ambition to make the country’s passport among the five most powerful passports in the world by 2021. At the time of the announcement, the UAE passport held a visa-free score of 132 countries.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said recently that the country is actively strengthening its diplomatic efforts in a bid to have one of the top five passports in the world, as per the country’s vision 2021.

In the latest Global Passport Index, Singapore placed first, with citizens able to travel to 166 countries without a prior visa.

In second position were a number of countries, including Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, The Netherlands, South Korea and United States.

In third place were Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Japan, Ireland and Canada.