Malaysia named second friendliest country in Asia

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia ranks second in the list of Asia’s top five most friendliest countries, according to a survey rating by finance website, Insider Monkey.

Scoring at 2.20 in the list, Malaysia is voted as the 15th friendliest country in the world.

The rating also ranks Malaysia as the 16th most immigrant-friendly country in the world, with a migrant stock in population of 10.7% referring to the number of people born in a country other than that in which they live, including refugees.

“HSBC has listed Malaysia as the 25th best country for expat living. 26 million tourists travelled 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 authorisation (ETA) entry offered to travellers,” the rating said.

Insider Monkey is a financial website which provides trading and hedge fund data.

The United Arab Emirates took the top spot of the five friendliest countries in Asia with a score of 2.52.

Other countries listed in the top five most friendly countries in Asia in descending order were; Vietnam, Philippines and Singapore.

The countries were rated and ranked based on four sources - Yahoo Finance and Insider Monkey’s articles on 30 Friendliest Countries in the World and 20 Most Immigrant Friendly Countries In The World, HSBC’s Expat Explorer rankings that list the top 46 destinations for expat living, and Passport Index’s Welcoming Countries Rank 2024, which ranks countries on how many passports they accept visa-free, with visa on arrival or Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA).

Following the sources, the countries were then ranked and assigned scores by dividing their rank on the list with the total number of countries listed in the articles in which the scores were then aggregated to determine overall scores for each country.