P R E S S R E L E A S E

President of the Republic wants to solve quickly border negotiations with Indonesia

The President of the Republic, Dr. José Ramos-Horta, praised the excellence of the bilateral relations between Timor-Leste and Indonesia, after welcoming a delegation of 50 Indonesian auditors of the National Leadership Course, who are returning today to Jakarta.

The Timorese Head of State held his speech on Wednesday at the Nicolau Lobato Palace, where he welcomed the greetings of the Indonesian auditors who travelled to Dili to take the lead of the national sensibility on the future of bilateral cooperation related to insular border crossing of people and goods, as well as to trade.

In his intervention, Dr. Ramos-Horta highlighted the fundamental aspects of this issue: the “border crossing pass” and the “border markets”.

It is now in progress an important study on borderlines, security management, the future creation of a free trade zone and the cooperation for the environmental preservation.

A agreement between both parties, concerning the border crossing pass, was signed when Dr. Ramos-Horta was still the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Timor-Leste and Megawati Sukarnoputri the President of Indonesia.

The President of the Republic also reviewed the Timorese double digit economic growth of the last two fiscal years, and announced a ”package” of big investments in infrastructures for development, in 2010.

Roads, freshwater supply systems and basic sanitation, electrification of the country, and support given to self-sufficient agriculture are some of the priorities enhanced by Dr. Ramos-Horta.

The Head of State also encouraged the Indonesian private sector to “walk into [Timor-Leste] with confidence” and to “participate in the projects”, because its businessmen “know well the country and the language”.

The friendly meeting between the President of the Republic and the Indonesian Delegation ended with the usual presents exchange and the “family photo”.

PPR – Dili, NOV 26th, 2009

José H. Meirelles International Relations/Media Senior Advisor Presidency of the Republic Int.Relations Dep.

PBX : +670-333-9999/ext. 242 e-mail: assessor.relintmedia.pr.rdtl@gmail.com Mobile: +670-751-6413 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

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