Malta moved up from ninth to eighth place in the Henley Passport Index for the second quarter of this year, sharing the same ranking as the Czech Republic, Greece and New Zealand.

The best placing Malta has enjoyed since the index was introduced in 2006, was seventh in 2018 and the lowest was 15^th in 2010.

Japan again ranks first, followed by Singapore, in second place, and Germany together with South Korea, in third. Afghanistan is at the bottom of the list at 109^th position.

Henley & Partners, the concessionaire of the Malta Individual Investor Programme, or, as it is controversially known, the cash-for-passports scheme, said its latest index offers a “disturbing insight into the indiscriminate havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic”.

It drew a sharp contrast between the index for the second quarter and the one published last January. The January study showed that, overall, people were the most globally mobile they had ever been in the history of humankind, with Japan’s top-ranking passport offering holders access to a record-breaking 191 destinations without the need of a visa.

Though Japan’s passport still tops the index, stringent travel restrictions in place mean that most non-essential travel for Japanese nationals is heavily curtailed. “This is true for almost every country, of course, as more travel bans are implemented daily, and ever-more stringent coronavirus lockdown regulations are imposed by governments worldwide.

“With 3.5 billion people, nearly half the global population, presently living in voluntary or mandatory confinement, the latest results from the index… raise challenging questions about what travel freedom and global mobility really mean, both currently and in a deeply uncertain post-pandemic future,” Henley & Partners commented.

Henley & Partners CEO, Juerg Steffen said that, in the post COVID-19 environment, investment migration “will take on a dramatically enhanced importance for both individual investors and sovereign states. Acquiring alternative residence or citizenship will act as a hedge against the significant macro-economic volatility that is predicted, creating even more sovereign and societal value across the world”.