Maputo — The Mozambican government intends to gather experience from East Timor in managing the country's sovereign wealth fund, which was approved in December by the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
According to Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, who was speaking in Maputo on Saturday during the state banquet that he offered to his East Timorese counterpart, José Ramos Horta, during his official visit to Mozambique, "Mozambique wants to capitalize on East Timor's extensive experience in implementing the sovereign wealth fund, one of its success stories. We also want to learn the same lessons in the gas exploration process, from the moment contracts are drawn up to production and marketing.'
Approved 20 years ago, East Timor's petroleum fund is based on the petroleum fund used in Norway, one of the few international models that has been found to operate well and contributes to the sensible management of petroleum wealth.
In 2023, the Timorese Central Bank's report revealed that the country's petroleum fund earned around 18.2 billion dollars.
Regarding East Timor's coffee production, Nyusi said that its production and its entire value chain is also another area to be explored, as East Timor has become the world's largest producer of organic coffee.
"Mozambique already produces coffee to a remarkable degree in many regions of our territory', he said. "Together we must work so that the values we share are consolidated and projected with great visibility also in the economic field'.
For his part, Ramos Horta said that both delegations discussed the possibility of opening a Mozambican Embassy in Dili, the Timorese capital. There has been an East Timorese Embassy in Maputo since 2002.
Ramos Horta also mentioned that Timorese people, who currently occupy and have occupied important positions in the state administration of that Asian country, including the former prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, undertook their studies in Mozambique, during the years when Timor was under Indonesian occupation.
Before becoming prime minister, he said, Alkatiri studied at the Law Faculty of the Eduardo Mondlane University, the oldest higher education institution in the country.
He recalled that "I personally, and all of us involved in the Timorese diplomatic front travelled on Mozambican passports'.
