Second-Friendliest Country in Asia and the 15th in the World

Malaysia is ranked as the second-friendliest country in Asia and the 15th in the world, according to a survey.

Malaysia received a score of 2.20 in the survey conducted by the finance website Insider Monkey, which is higher than that of its closest neighbor, Singapore, which came in fifth place. The United Arab Emirates came in first.

Malaysia is ranked as the 16th most immigration-friendly country in the world by the survey.

“This, as the country comes with a migrant stock population of 10.7 percent.

“HSBC has listed Malaysia as the 25th best country for expat living and 26 million tourists traveled to Malaysia in 2023, aided by a high visa acceptance rate.

“According to the Passport Index 2024, Malaysia is the fourth most welcoming country in the world in terms of visa on arrival and electronic travel authorization entry offered to travel passengers,” it said.

Based on information from four sources—Yahoo Finance, HSBC’s Expat Explorer, Passport Index’s Welcoming Countries Rank 2024, and Insider Monkey’s articles on 30 Friendliest Countries in the World and 20 Most Immigrant Friendly Countries in the World—the friendliest countries in Asia were ranked, according to Insider Monkey.

“We observed where every Asian country ranked on each of these lists and assigned them scores by dividing their rank on each list by the total number of countries ranked on those lists.

“Scores were then aggregated to determine overall scores for each country.”

As previously reported, Tourism Malaysia is optimistic about reaching 27.3 million foreign visitor arrivals this year because of several encouraging factors, such as the government’s incentive for matching charter flights, the Visa Liberalization program, and an increase in overseas tourism promotion efforts.

This, according to the country’s director-general, Datuk Dr. Ammar Abd Ghapar, comes after over 20 million foreign visitors arrived, exceeding the 19.1 million expected.