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Sri Lanka should negotiate for more visa-free access across countries
By Sarrah Sammoon
The power of passports has been a hot topic, both during and before the pandemic. Businesses, investors, and tourists in Sri Lanka would have to plan months ahead before making a trip, to allow processing times for visas to enter another country most often, because of the passport they hold.
What is a passport? According to Lexico it is: “An official document issued by a Government, certifying the holder's identity and citizenship, and entitling them to travel under its protection to and from foreign countries.”
The concept of the power of a passport was coined due to an index created by an advisory firm known as Henley & Partners: The Henley Passport Index (HPI). Since then, there have been several indexes, but the HPI is known to be the original ranking of the world’s passports. Their power was evaluated according to the number of destinations that a country’s passport holders can access without a prior visa. They rank this through data they obtain from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
So where does Sri Lanka stand? In 2021, Sri Lanka is ranked 100th out of 110 countries. According to HPI’s Q1 2021 release, Sri Lanka can travel to 42 countries currently without prior visas, visa on arrival, or visa-free. These countries include:
Asia
- Cambodia
- Indonesia
- Laos
- Maldives
- Nepal
- Pakistan
- Singapore
- Timor-Leste
Europe/Africa
- Cape Verde Islands
- Comores Island
- Gambia
- Guinea-Bissau
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- Madagascar
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mozambique
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra leone
- Somalia
- Togo
- Uganda
Oceania
- Cook Islands
- Micronesia
- Niue
- Palau islands
- Samoa
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu
Caribbean islands:
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- British Virgin Islands
- Dominica
- Grenada
- Haiti
- Monserrat
- St Kitts and Nevis
- St Vincent and the grenadines
The Americas
- Bolivia
Our neighbor India, is ranked at 85th,and the Indian passport allows travel to 58 destinations. They can come to Sri Lanka without a visa – but Sri Lankans don’t enjoy the same privilege. Countries that Indian passport holders can go to visa-free, but Sri Lanka cannot, are:
Asia
- Bhutan
- Macao
- Myanmar
- Thailand
Europe
- Serbia
Africa
- Botswana
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Tanzania
- Tunisia
- Zimbabwe
Oceania
- Fiji
- Marshall Islands
Caribbean islands
- Jamaica
- St Lucia
- Trinidad and Tobago
The Americas
- El Salvador
Middle East
- Iran
- Jordan
- Qatar
How do people navigate ease of travel? They choose to migrate and meet residency requirements to obtain a second passport, or at times they purchase economic passports offered by some countries that increase their Foreign Direct Investment through this process. High Networth Individuals who purchase second passports increase their Global Mobility Score.
But what if, as a nation, we look at increasing the Global Mobility Score for all Sri Lankans? What if our Government worked on increasing the power of the Sri Lankan passport and increasing our world ranking on the passport index? This is an area around which we see very little conversations.
Speaking to Prof. Dimitry Kochenov, the author of Citizenship (MIT Press, 2019), and visiting scholar of the University of Oxford he says: “A passport like the Sri Lankan one is best viewed as a liability instead of a bundle of rights in the world of contemporary passport apartheid.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should work on launching a “Sri Lankan Passport Force Initiative”, like the United Arab Emirates did in 2017 to try to increase their position to one of the top five passports in the world. Very often, visa exemption is granted on condition of reciprocity, but that is not the case for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka would need to rely on diplomatic relations to obtain this privilege for Sri Lankans.
A holder of a second passport from Grenada, when asked as to why she spent more than $ 200,000 getting a Grenada passport while she retained her Sri Lankan passport, said: “If I could travel to 186 destinations on my Sri Lankan passport without a hassle getting visas, I would never have spent that money. I choose to live in Sri Lanka, but I need to travel, to network for my export orders, and each and every time I took a risk applying for visas to Europe and the UK; finally it paid off to get a passport that allows more visa-free travel. I was able to concentrate on increasing trade and also exploring different cultures, which I learnt from and applied on my return home.”
The world has shifted, and freedom of travel is an important aspect for this generation. Experiential travelling to foreign countries can increase trade, and also be a positive contribution towards scientific, cultural, and other exchanges between nations. It can also contribute towards understanding different people and evaluating one’s own beliefs to adopt a growth mindset.
(The author has 26 years of experience in facilitating immigration compliance and global mobility solutions for multinational companies and HNIs. She is a Certified Global Mobility Specialist – USA, EURA and Member of the Investment Migration Council, Switzerland.)
