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East Timor’s president on Monday slammed the country’s economic policy, saying it was dependent on oil and unsustainable.
“A state that depends on only one resource, on gas and petrol, which is exhaustible and which society and citizens depend on, doesn’t seem to be following a sustainable development policy,” Francisco Guterres Lu-Olo said at a formal sitting at the country’s parliament.
“Society is victimising itself as it prefers to consume more immediately, at the expense of its own future,” Mr Guterres Lu-Olo said.
He added that the government would continue to play a “crucial” role in the economy and should use the resources from the country’s petroleum fund to “create indispensable conditions for the diversified and sustainable growth of the non-petroleum economy.”
The private formal sector continues to be “incipient” and employs only 60,000 people – a tenth of the population, meaning the economy depends on “oscillations of public spending,” he said.
He added that between 2012 and 2017, $7.77 billion (€6.68 billion) were spent out of a total budgeted amount of $9.86 billion (€8.47 billion).
“That revenue from the petroleum fund has been applied on expenses at a level above its estimated sustainable income, without generating safe public financing alternatives, private investment and the ability to generate wealth through the diversification of the economy,” Mr Lu-Olo said.
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