East-Timor aims to attract investment from China via Macau

East-Timor’s (Timor-Leste) new delegate to the Permanent Secretariat of Forum Macau aims during his three-year term to attract more investment to his country from China and the Portuguese-
speaking countries, reports the bilingual newspaper Plataforma.
Danilo Afonso-Henriques assumed his current position last June. He explained that Forum Macau annually organises several visits to China, “so I aim to explore investment opportunities, especially in southern China and Macau.”
“East-Timor wants to achieve more business and trade activity, specifically by finding and exploring eventual opportunities,” Afonso-Henriques said, recalling that there were Timorese entrepreneurs in Macau with “much interest and willingness to develop the country.”
He said the aim was to “help diversify the economy of East-Timor, which is very dependent on natural resources, namely oil and gas.”
In East-Timor “you will find good business opportunities, because most of what it consumes is imported.” The half-island country has “a lot of land and potential, especially in agriculture,” he added.
Afonso-Henriques said there had already been contacts with a view to creating direct air links between East-Timor  and Macau and stressed that the “potential of attracting visitors from Macau to East-Timor and vice versa” will have to be examined.
“We also want to discuss the possibility of a more direct connection to transport commercial products” in order to increase exports, he said.  MDT/Macauhub