East Timor plans to open development support agency in Guinea Bissau

The government of East Timor plans to open a development agency with an initial budget of US$2 million to support small projects, the former president of East Timor, José Ramos Horta said in Praia, Cape Verde.

At the end of a conference on Challenges in Africa, held Friday in the Cape Verdean capital, the former Timor president noted that this was a “small gesture” from a “poor” country, but which could offer help within its possibilities.

Horta, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 and is now the special representative of the United Nations secretary-general for Guinea Bissau, also mentioned the transition process underway in the country, following a state coup on 12 April 2012, which interrupted the country’s presidential electoral process and brought down the government of Carlos Gomes Júnior.

“I believe that, in the coming days, there will be a more widely-accepted government, that there will be elections at the end of the year and that there will be a new constitutional regime, and it is essential to have greater support from the international community at that time to help the government rebuild the country,” he said, cited by Portuguese news agency Lusa. (macauhub)

www.macauhub.com.mo
JUNE 3RD, 2013