Do you want to work and live in another country? Then you are probably interested to know the friendliest and the least friendly country for immigrants. A survey conducted by HSBC bank's global tried to provide an answer to this important question.

According to the "Expat Explorer Survey”, the friendliest country for immigrants is New Zealand and the least friendly country is United Arab Emirates (UAE).

New Zealand is said to be home to more than 27,000 Filipinos while over 600,000 Filipinos are working and living in UAE. Saudi Arabia where more than 1 million Filipinos are residing is rated as the most challenging country for expats. The Philippines is also part of the list and it was ranked as the 8^th friendliest country for foreigners.

According to an article that appeared in the online site of Forbes, the ranking was done using the four categories below:

1.      Easy to befriend locals

2.      Learn the local language

3.      Integrate to local community, and

4.      Fit into the new culture.

The survey of HSBC was released in December 2011 and it was used by Forbes so they can come up with the Top 15 friendliest nations.

1.      New Zealand

2.      Australia

3.      South Africa

4.      Canada

5.      United States

6.      Turkey

7.      United Kingdom

8.      Philippines

9.      Spain

10.  Malaysia

11.  Brazil

12.  Italy

13.  Mexico

14.  Singapore

15.  France

Australia is the second friendliest country while South Africa ranked third. Actually, Australia and South Africa gets a higher score than New Zealand in the category where respondents are asked to rate the easiness of integrating well into the community. New Zealand only got 75%, Australia got 77% and South Africa got 79%. However, New Zealand is declared the friendliest country because it gained high scores in all of the four survey categories

The Forbes list also shows the most challenging country for expatriates.

1.      Saudi Arabia

2.      Qatar

3.      Russia

4.      India