Photo: the new designs for South Korean passport. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
For the first time in 33 years, the passport of the Republic of Korea got a major makeover. From the previous color of olive green, the passport will be blue, with an updated design featuring the national seal. The new passport will also incorporate state-of-the-art anti-forgery technology.
As the COVID pandemic nears its end (the omicron variant notwithstanding), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 외교부 expects a surge in demand for new passports. Each year, South Korea typically issues 5m new passports. But because of the steep drop in demand for international travel due to the pandemic, only 1m new passports were issued in 2020, and only 460k were issued as of September 2021.