Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese Chargé d’Affaires to Timor-Leste Pham Binh Dam held a meeting in Dili on July 20 with Timor-Leste Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Assanami Sabino Lopes to disucss measures to deepen cooperation in food security, fisheries, rural development and human resources training.
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% of its domestic food demand. 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 stated that 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.
For the long term, he proposed expanding cooperation beyond trade to support Timor-Leste’s domestic production capacity. Vietnam stands ready to share expertise in crop varieties, cultivation techniques, irrigation, agricultural mechanisation, post-harvest preservation and the development of agricultural value chains, Dam said.
Regarding fisheries, Sabino Lopes noted that Timor-Leste possesses maritime waters four times larger than its land area and 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 his hope that the two countries will strengthen collaboration 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 are well positioned to support Timor-Leste’s fisheries development through shipbuilding, technology transfer, aquaculture, fishing techniques, cold storage facilities and aquatic product processing. He advised 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, the Vietnamese diplomat attended the launching ceremony of Timor-Leste’s semi-industrial fishing vessels.
Among the three newly launched vessels was one built with investment from a Vietnamese enterprise, highlighting the gradual shift of Vietnamese businesses in Timor-Leste from trade to production and investment.
Both sides underscored that human resources development will be crucial to ensuring 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 Gusmão’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./.
VNA
