The Challenges, Development, and Promise of Timor-Leste is the result of an international
symposium on Timor-Leste, organized by the City University of Macau on October
30, 2018 and sponsored by GAES (Gabinete de Apoio ao Ensino Superior)
of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) Government. This
international symposium was attended by Timor-Leste’s Ambassador to the
People’s Republic of China, representatives of the Commissioner’s Office of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in the Macau
Special Administrative Region, representatives of the Forum for Economic and
Commercial Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries
(Macau) and twenty scholars and practitioners from the People’s Republic of
China, Macau, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Portugal, Australia and Timor-Leste.
Mindful of Macau’s role in China’s foreign affairs, as well as the mission of
the City University of Macau in the educational field, the key objectives of this
symposium were:
1. To review the recent history of Timor-Leste vis-a-vis China and
regional partners, putting into perspective its current role as an actor
in the regional and inter-regional domains;
2. To serve as an academic platform as part of the CityU think tank’s
efforts to study and analyze current socio-economic development
trends in Timor-Leste;
3. To explore opportunities for deeper cooperation in the socioeconomic
development fields between China and Timor-Leste, and
the contribution of MSAR towards this goal;
4. To function as an open academic platform for debate on different
perspectives and challenges in the light of Timor-Leste’s National
Strategic development Plan (2011-2030).