DILI: Vietnam and Timor-Leste have agreed to deepen cooperation in food security, fisheries, rural development and human resources training as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to strengthen domestic production and create more jobs.
Vietnamese Chargé d’Affaires to Timor-Leste Pham Binh Dam met Timor-Leste Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Assanami Sabino Lopes in Dili on Monday to discuss measures to expand bilateral cooperation.
Sabino Lopes, who is also Coordinating Minister for Social Affairs and Minister of Rural Development and Community Housing, said Timor-Leste currently produces only about 40 percent of its domestic food needs.
Strengthening agricultural production is therefore essential not only to improve food self-sufficiency but also to achieve broader socio-economic goals, including better nutrition, poverty reduction, job creation and more stable incomes for rural households.
Sharing Vietnam’s development experience, Dam said bilateral cooperation in food security could be developed on the basis of complementarity.
In the short term, Vietnam will continue supplying stable, high-quality rice that meets Timor-Leste’s market demand, helping maintain rice as a key commodity in bilateral trade.
In the long term, Dam proposed expanding cooperation beyond trade to help strengthen Timor-Leste’s domestic production capacity.
Vietnam is ready to share expertise in crop varieties, cultivation techniques, irrigation, agricultural mechanisation, post-harvest preservation and the development of agricultural value chains, Dam said.
On fisheries, Sabino Lopes noted that Timor-Leste’s maritime waters are four times larger than its land area and contain abundant marine resources.
However, the country still faces limited capacity in fishing, storage and processing, leaving the sector with only a modest contribution to the non-oil economy.
He expressed hope that the two countries would strengthen cooperation in seafood exploitation, aquaculture and aquatic product processing, initially to improve domestic food supplies and create jobs and livelihoods for coastal communities before expanding into trade and exports.
Dam said Vietnamese enterprises were well positioned to support Timor-Leste’s fisheries development through shipbuilding, technology transfer, aquaculture, fishing techniques, cold-storage facilities and aquatic product processing.
He encouraged businesses from both countries to jointly develop production projects in Timor-Leste that combine investment with local recruitment, vocational training and gradual technology transfer.
Later the same day, Dam attended the launch ceremony for Timor-Leste’s semi-industrial fishing vessels.
One of the three newly launched vessels was built with investment from a Vietnamese company, highlighting the gradual shift of Vietnamese businesses in Timor-Leste from trade towards production and investment.
Both sides underscored the importance of human resources development to the long-term success of such projects.
Dam reaffirmed Vietnam’s readiness to cooperate in vocational education and capacity building, in line with bilateral education agreements signed during Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao’s visit to Vietnam in June.
The two sides agreed to maintain close consultations and identify priority areas for practical cooperation programmes.
They stressed that food security initiatives should go hand in hand with rural development, livelihood expansion, job creation and human resources development, contributing to Timor-Leste’s long-term stability and sustainable growth.- VNS/ANN
