ISLAMABAD – A passport is a vital travel document without which you can’t cross borders nowadays but besides being a travel document, a passport also reflects the overall outlook of the country which means that a prosperous country’s passport is stronger and an underdeveloped nation’s passport would be weaker.
Pakistan is crippled by economic challenges, inflation, extremism and mass poverty and such factors also reflect on the ranking of the passport.
The Henley Passport Index has revealed fresh rankings of the passports according to which the Pakistani passport has performed poorly.
As per the rankings revealed on Wednesday, Pakistan’s passport stood at the fourth place from the bottom.
The rankings also reveal the visa-free score of the country which comes out to be merely 34. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s passport only managed to beat Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
As far as the spot is concerned, Pakistan is at the 101st spot out of 104 countries examined by Henley Passport
When it comes to the strongest passports in the world, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Spain stood first in terms of strength with a visa-free score of 194.
The second spot was grabbed by Finland, South Korea and Sweden with a visa-free score of 193 while the third spot was clinched by Austria, Denmark, Ireland and Netherlands with a visa-free score of 192.
The United Arab Emirates has astonished everyone as the passport made it to the 11th rank with a visa-free score of 183.
Meanwhile, the US took the 7th spot with a score of 188 while the United Kingdom got the 4th place with a score of 191.
As far as Asia is concerned, India has taken the 80th spot with a score of 62 as the citizens of the country can travel to 62 countries without a visa. The rankings are based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and enhanced by Henley & Partners’ research team.
It bears mentioning that Pakistan was ranked 93rd in terms of the strength of the passport recently in another ranking by ‘Passport Index’ and its citizens can travel to only 8 countries without requiring any visa. These countries are Trinidad and Tobago, Micronesia, Gambia, Vanuatu, Barbados, Dominica, Haiti, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
