National Parliament Deputy President Aderito Hugo said like it or not, Timor-Leste should adhere to the ASEAN membership requirements so the country can reap the benefits.
“If we do not adhere we will be isolated. We submitted our official application in 2011 to become an ASEAN member,” Hugo said at Hotel Ramelau.
The Deputy President said as a nation Timor-Leste has been classified as a Peace Development country.
“We should take this opportunity because with this status (PDC) comes a big advantage to access the incentives of ASEAN itself,” Hugo explained.
Even though Timor-Leste is not a member of the World Trade Organization, the PDC status means that the country will be classified according to the World Bank’s classification system, giving Timor-Leste many opportunities to take advantage of.
“I think Timor-Leste’s PDC status has the benefit of giving us advantages during the transition time to prepare ourselves properly to fill the conditions we need to abide by to become an ASEAN member,” Hugo said.
President of Commission C (Public finance) MP Virgilio Maria Dias Marcal emphasized that the international seminar was very important to better understand what membership will mean.
“We always say we should adhere to ASEAN but we haven’t known its financial economic implications,” Marcal said.
The President of Commission C said the topics discussed at the seminar included the ASEAN commitment to proper work, economic cooperation within Asia, the free movement of workers within Asia as well as free market systems and legislative harmonization.
“We see that the international seminar is very important. It should have the participation of MPs about the financial implications that will arise when we are admitted to ASEAN,” Marcal said.
Debora Helms, a specialist from the Temasek Foundation in Singapore, said there had been no concerns previously about the business agreements that go along with ASEAN membership but that the only concerns were about the cost of tariffs.
She added in 2006, ASEAN began preparing a data base for those who were unaware of the tariffs.
She said an important aspect of ASEAN membership was training employees to deal with the customs of people from other nations.
The seminar ran February 12 to 14 with participants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (MNEK) and the Secretary of State for ASEAN Matters.
