DILI, 9 February 2023–The ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC) in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) conducted the first of four clusters of Capacity Building Programme (CBP) for Timor-Leste’s Accession to the ASEAN Economic Agreements on 7-9 February in Dili.
The CBP aims to ramp up Timor-Leste’s readiness to the economic agreements and instruments under the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) pillar. Under the programme, ASEC staff from the AEC Department will be dispatched to Timor-Leste.
As the first of the series, the training under Cluster I is geared towards building knowledge and facilitating greater understanding of AEC’s work, its processes, and mechanisms as well as the Initiative for ASEAN Integration and Narrowing the Development Gap (IAI&NDG).
In addition, a session with the private sector was held to exchange views on their role in the accession process to enable them to effectively participate and benefit from the economic agreements. The programme provided immersive and engaging learning experiences for the participants through interactive discussions on the relevant aspects of the ASEAN economic integration agenda.
Satvinder Singh, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for the ASEAN Economic Community delivered his opening remarks on video. He reassured Timor-Leste on ASEC’s commitment to support their capacity development in the preparation and accession of their full membership to the regional organisation and in the implementation of the various ASEAN economic agreements.
He further acknowledged the CBP as an important platform to boost capacity and help expedite Timor-Leste’s accession process. He called upon the officials to take this opportunity to benefit from and tap on the available technical resource during the training. The provision of this CBP is in line with the recommendations from the AEC Fact-Finding Mission to Timor-Leste in July 2022.
The three-day training was participated in by 63 officials from various ministries and line agencies of Timor-Leste including the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; Ministry of Tourism, Commerce and Industry; Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries; Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Culture; Ministry of Finance; TradeInvest; Customs Authority; the Office of the President of Timor-Leste; and the Office of the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste.
The ASEC delegation also paid a courtesy visit to Arcanjo da Silva, Executive Director of TradeInvest Timor-Leste and Indicative SEOM Lead, and to Milena Rangel, Director-General for ASEAN Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Timor-Leste to exchange views on ways to further strengthen the country’s capacity in line with the various economic agreements across the AEC sectors.
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