Portugal has been ranked as the third most peaceful countries in the newly released Global Peace Index (GPI) launched today. Iceland and New zealand take the first two spots while Austria comes behind Portugal in the fourth place.
Portugal gains one spot from last years rankings.  Canada remains one of the ten most peaceful countries in the world, the US fell four places to 128th in the index in 2019. The US has deteriorated every year since 2016.
Portugal has made significant strides in peacefulness in the last five years, said the GPI report.
In the 2018 GPI, Portugal’s ranking fell from third to fourth. Hinging on increases to UN peacekeeping funding, improvements on the Political Terror Scale and decreasing the homicide rate, Portugal has found its seat back in the third most peaceful position on the 2019 GPI.
In the 2014 GPI, Portugal was transitioning out of a national financial crisis and ranked 18th. In 2019, Portugal is often cited as an example of economic resurgence and peace progress after its recent financial crisis and bail out recovery.
Portugal is now enjoying its highest economic growth in two decades, foreign direct investment has returned to 2009 levels, and the nation has returned to its most peaceful ranking on the GPI, said the report published in Global Peace Index.
The Golden visa scheme is also one of the major driving force for Portugal achieving this unprecedented growth. The Golden visa scheme received close to US $5.2 billion dollars, equivalent to 1.5% of GDP, most of which invested in the real estate sector.
CBI/RBI countries in Global Peace Index
These are the ranks of the countries offering Citizenship by investment (CBI) and Residence by Investment (RBI) schemes. The GPI index excludes small countries with less than the population of 1 million.
- New Zealand – #2
- Portugal – #3
- Canada – #6
- Singapore – #7
- Ireland – #12
- Australia – #13
- Malaysia – #16
- Netherlands – #17
- Bulgaria –Â #26
- Spain – #32
- Latvia – #35
- Italy – #39
- United Kingdom – #45
- Cyprus – #63
- Greece – #65
- Thailand – #116
- United States – #128
- Turkey – #152
The GPI covers 99.7% of the world’s population at present.
