Guyanese business owners and frequent travellers will have the option to choose a 46-page machine-readable passport, at a cost of $10,000 as against the country’s current 32-page passport.
The current 32-page Guyana passport
During his Budget 2019 presentation in the National Assembly on Monday, Finance Minister Winston Jordan announced the new passport.
The Minister explained that the new passport would reduce both the cost and the time spent to renew the document once it has expired.
The Department of Public Information (DPI) spoke to persons at the Central Immigration Passport Office about this new measure.
Collin Chung, a Venezuelan by birth with Guyanese parentage, said as a frequent traveller this new passport would be quite convenient for those persons who were too busy to undergo the renewal process and should be embraced.
“I think the 46-pages passport would be beneficial, because we are entering industrialisation through our exploitation of petroleum in the country, so it would open a lot of doors and break down barriers to expand on tourism within the country.”
In expressing her view, Gloria Giddings said that although she was simply visiting the country, she could appreciate how the new measure would benefit the regular air traveller.
Guyana’s passport has recently increased in value according to the Henly and Partners Passport Index 2018. The Index shows that Guyanese can now travel to 88 countries visa-free/visa-on-arrival, moving the country up four places on the Index’s rankings, to 55 in the world.
According to the 2017 index, Guyana’s passport allowed Guyanese to travel to 81 countries without requiring a visa or with a visa granted on arrival.
