ASEAN Economic Community fact-finding mission to Timor-Leste shows progress towards ASEAN Accession

DILI, 25 July 2022 –The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Fact-Finding Mission to Timor-Leste was conducted on 19-21 July, led by Rath Saravuth, Director General of International Trade, Ministry of Commerce of the Kingdom of Cambodia, as ASEAN Senior Economic Officials Meeting (SEOM) Chair for 2022.

The mission comprised of representatives of SEOM and the ASEAN Secretariat and was held in a hybrid format to facilitate both physical and virtual participation of delegates.  

The three-day AEC Fact-Finding Mission saw the delegates exchanging views with key Timor Leste ministries/government agencies involved in the accession to the ASEAN Economic Agreements, namely Ministry of Finance; Ministry for Petroleum and Mineral; Ministry of Tourism, Commerce and Industry; Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries; Ministry of Public Works; Ministry of Transport and Communication; Customs Authority; Secretariat of State for Professional Training and Labor. There were also engagements with the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Timor-Leste and the business community of Timor-Leste.

As part of the programme, the delegates also visited the Tibar Bay Port and the Dili Port for Passengers’ Traffic to learn about future potentials of the ports towards Timor-Leste’s economy. A visit to the Tibar Training Centre was also conducted to gauge the role of the training centre in providing human resource capacity support towards Timor-Leste’s accession to the AEC.

ASEAN delegates acknowledged Timor-Leste’s efforts in conducting economic reforms in the relevant sectors and improving its human capacity in the past few years. ASEAN further encouraged Timor-Leste to continue to participate in ASEAN non-policy making activities for capacity building purposes.

This mission marked the completion of the fact-finding missions to Timor-Leste by all three pillars of ASEAN, with the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) FFM on 3-6 September 2019 and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) FFM on 6-8 July 2022. The report of the AEC Fact-Finding Mission will be submitted to SEOM as well as the ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) for consideration and subsequently to the ASEAN Coordinating Council.

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