The Malaysian Immigration Department announced that Malaysian citizens now enjoy visa-free travel to 174 countries worldwide.
This new ranking makes the Malaysian passport the second strongest in Southeast Asia after Singapore, thus strengthening the country's image as an important player in the international travel security and governance system.
The department explained that the achievement reflects global trust and recognition of the level of security of Malaysia's travel documents, which is trusted internationally.
According to a Bernama report citing data from passportindex.org, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) passport ranks first in the Passport Power Rank, followed by Singapore and Spain in second place.
Interestingly, Malaysia was only ranked 12th in the world a month ago, but the jump of nine places this time shows a sharp increase as a result of the government's continuous efforts to strengthen document security and diplomatic relations with foreign countries.
Malaysia is now ranked third in the world, in line with 15 other countries including Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and South Korea.
