Government of Timor-Leste

The 20^th Ordinary Meeting of the Council of Ministers of CPLP was held on July 24^th, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, in Dili. The preparation of this meeting began with the 31^st Meeting of Focal Points of Cooperation. On July 22^nd, met the Technical Working Group for the Preparation of the Committee of Permanent Consultation and, on July 23^rd, took place the 184^th Ordinary Meeting of the Permanent Steering Committee.

The opening of the 20^th Ordinary Meeting was made by the Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araújo, who stated that "CPLP is the best platform that we, Portuguese speaking societies, have to position ourselves in the international fora, such as the UN and its agencies, and the regional as the SADC (Southern Africa), ECOWAS (West Africa), MERCOSUR (South America), the European Union and ASEAN (South East Asia)". Thus, "the internationalization of the Portuguese language, as a language of work in the United Nations and other major international organizations, should be a goal stressed in our common policy".

The Timorese Prime Minister also stressed the need for a new strategy to consolidate CPLP, projecting it as a whole, and going beyond the interests of each Member State, allowing us to make inroads internationally". He gave as an example the proposal from Timor-Leste, launched during the 10^th Heads of State and Government Summit and reinforced at the 1^st Meeting of Energy Ministers of CPLP – to create a consortium of companies of hydrocarbons of the Member States, with the purpose of ensuring that the wealth of natural resources will result in benefits for the nine countries belonging to the organization.

During the 20^th Ordinary Meeting of the Council of Ministers of CPLP were adopted the following resolutions: the report "The new strategic vision of CPLP"; the headquarters of the Representation of CPLP in Dili; the creation of the position of Advisory Observer of CPLP; creation of Techno-Professional Education in CPLP; the drafting of the "Report of Education Statistics of CPLP" ; the II Forum of Civil Society; the table of costs of the Operating Budget of the Executive Secretariat of the CPLP for the year 2015; the Operating Budget of the Executive Secretariat for the year 2016; the Operating Budget of the International Institute of the Portuguese Language (acronym in Portuguese: IILP) for the year 2016; and the "Audit Report of the financial statements of IILP" for the year 2013.

It was also signed the Multilateral Convention for Social Security and adopted a tribute to the late Minister of State, Coordinating Minister of Social Affairs and Minister of Education, Fernando La Sama de Araújo.