It may be a familiar experience: you and your Beijing duixiang want to jet off to another country for a holiday – or you and your Beijing colleague need to attend an important meeting outside of China – but the destination's visa requirements ground your plans.
People's Republic of China (PRC) passport holders can expect more of this until their little red book become more "powerful," according to a new index. The Passport Index, created by investment group Arton Capital, measures a passport's power based on the number of places the bearer can go without first applying for a visa.
United States (self high five) and United Kingdom passports tied for first, with each giving the bearer visa-free travel privileges to 147 countries and territories. Hong Kong ranked 11th, and PRC passports, 45th. Belize placed 44th, in case you were wondering. The Solomon Islands, Myanmar, South Sudan, Sao Tome and Principe, and the Palestinian Territories all tied for last, with their citizens able to visit only 20 other countries and territories without first applying for a visa.
However, expect China to slide up those rankings by the time they are updated next. With over 100 million outbound tourists per year now, destinations are competing to attract travelers from China (except maybe Hong Kong). For example, while Guam requires a US visa and as a result sees relatively few Chinese arrivals, the nearby Northern Marianas Islands, including Saipan, don't require a visa and as such receive hundreds of thousands of visitors per year.
There's a credit card commercial in there somewhere.
More stories by this author here.
Email: stevenschwankert@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @greatwriteshark
Weibo: @SinoScuba潜水
Photo: Wikimedia
Dunno where the "new" index got it's info but according to MOFA China, Chinese citizens, holding ordinary passports, can visit 52 countries and territories visa-free or visa on arrival. The information can be found here (In Chinese though). This was announced on January 20, 2015.
Cheers
