Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor) is a tiny country of 1.4m people in South-East Asia. A former Portuguese colony, it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002 after 24 years of brutal occupation.
At independence Timor-Leste had "no economy to speak of, no banking system, no administration", according to José Ramos-Horta. The country has since established a democracy, installed a power grid and earned billions from oil-and-gas fields. But it is still poor, and existing fields are depleted. The economy relies on money from a sovereign wealth fund that invested the fossil-fuel proceeds.
Timor-Leste follows a non-aligned foreign policy and has avoided taking loans from China. Officials are wary of state capture, given the country's history of occupation.
In October 2025 ASEAN admitted Timor-Leste as its 11th member state, and first new one since 1999, at a summit in Malaysia. The bloc took 14 years to mull the application. Members had worried that Timor-Leste lacked the administrative capacity to cope with the demands of full membership; others feared that bringing in a small, poor country could render the bloc more vulnerable to Chinese influence.
Mr Ramos-Horta hopes that joining a market of almost 700m people will make it easier for his country to export to the region. Membership may also bring in foreign investment and know-how, which could help improve agricultural productivity and diversify the economy before the money from its fossil-fuel fund runs out.
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