Speeches Shim
It was midnight and Camelia de Jesus looked down to see her 9-month-old son struggling to breathe. “I was so nervous and desperate to see my baby, Pedro, in a frail condition,” she said.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Tourism, Commerce and Industry on Friday launched the country’s first Marine Tourism Association to make Timor-Leste a world renowned destination for environmental tourism.
Coffee is the cash crop king of Timor-Leste’s agricultural exports. At $12 million annually, it’s a mere drop in the pot of the $30.6-billion global coffee market but it’s a major achievement for the tiny Southeast Asia island nation.
A national committee to gain international recognition for Timor-Leste’s traditional Tais cloth and other cultural assets launched on April 23 at a workshop sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development’s Tourism For All Project, the Timor-Leste Secretariat of State for Art and Culture, and other partners.
It would have been difficult to tell during the days of Indonesian rule in Timor-Leste that someday the coffee sector might be a great example of how an enterprise – or a country – can move along its journey to self-reliance. But on March 19, Timor-Leste and the United States marked an important milestone after 20-plus years as the last U.S. coffee support project ended.
U.S. representatives marked the end of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agribusiness Development Project, which supported Cooperativa Café Timor and the National Cooperative Business Association. U. S. Ambassador Kathleen M. Fitzpatrick and USAID Mission Director Diana B. Putman joined CCT and USDA staff from Jakarta and Washington for ceremonies, which included visits by some to two farms in Aileu Municipality growing coffee, cloves, vanilla and black pepper. The dignitaries planted vanilla and clove seedlings while out in the field.
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