Government of Timor-Leste

On January 14th, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dili, the Secretary of State for ASEAN Affairs, Roberto Soares, formally handed the total of one million and five hundred thousand dollars to authorities of Malaysia and Thailand to assist these governments in facing the damages caused by tropical storm Jangmi, that recently hit the region and these two countries in particular.

The decision to provide this financial support was taken on the Council of Ministers’ first meeting of the year on January 6^th, as explained by Secretary of State Roberto Soares at the ceremony for hand-over of the humanitarian aid to these two countries, neighbours and friends of Timor-Leste: “Last week, His Excellency Prime-Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão convened an urgent Extraordinary Meeting of the Council of Ministers to discuss what Timor-Leste can do to assist and manifest the Timorese people’s virtue of solidarity to its friends in Malaysia and Thailand affected by the flooding. H.E. Prime-Minister expressed his deepest sympathy when chairing the meeting on the situation faced by our close friends in Malaysia and Thailand, as were the members of the government when discussing the resolution for humanitarian contributions to Malaysia and Thailand”.

The Secretary of State recalled the support of these two countries for the construction of Timor-Leste: “It is still very fresh in the minds of every Timorese citizen of what Malaysia and Thailand did to assist Timor-Leste in the gloomy years of 1999 and onwards in the reconstruction and consolidation process of this country. Malaysia and Thailand are some of Timor-Leste’s closest friends. These two countries stood by Timor-Leste in very difficult situations. As a gesture of solidarity from the people and the government of Timor-Leste to the peoples and governments of Malaysia and Thailand, the government approved, at the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers on 6th January 2015, the allocation of USD1 million of financial aid to the government and population of Malaysia affected by the disaster, and US500,000 to the government and population of Thailand affected by the disaster.”

We emphasize that several provinces of Malaysia such as Perlis, Perak, Kelantan, Trengganu e Pahand, were affected by this storm, causing thousands of displaced people and, at least, twenty casualties. In Thailand, a state of calamity was declared in eight regions. More than twenty thousand people were evacuated so far.