The UAE passport has ranked the highest among GCC countries, positioned at the 47th place in the Passport Index, an online interactive tool, which collects, displays and ranks the passports of the world.

Following closely is Qatar at 52nd place, whilst Bahrain and Saudi Arabia both ranked at 57th.

Launched by Arton Capital, a global financial advisory firm specialising in investor programs for residency and citizenship, the Passport Index is one of the numerous interactive tools that shows the power of the world's passports based on points accumulated for each country that the passport holder can travel visa-free.

Visitors of passportindex.org can discover the world’s passports on a map, by country name, by Passport Power Rank and even by the colour of their cover. The country list is based on the 193 UN member countries and 6 territories for a total of 199. The territories annexed to other countries are excluded. For the visa-free count, IATA's Timaticweb platform and other sources are consulted.

The USA and UK top are ranked first, with France, Germany and South Korea in tie at second place. The passports of Solomon Islands, Myanmar (Burma), South Sudan, Sao Tome and Principe were ranked at the bottom of the list.

"Working in an industry that is so sensitive to origin and nationality, we wanted to display the diversity, the beauty and the power of world's passports", said Armand Arton, president and CEO of Arton Capital. – TradeArabia News Service