Jakarta. East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta boasted about Dili’s economic strength, including its investments and low foreign debt, during a trip to Jakarta on Friday, as the half-island nation is set to join ASEAN in about two months.

ASEAN has agreed to bring Timor-Leste into its fold in October, finally putting an end to Dili’s decade-long wait. Timor-Leste formally applied to the group in 2011, but concerns about its economic and security readiness had clouded its admission. Speaking at the ASEAN Secretariat, Ramos-Horta said that his country had been maintaining its economy, in what seemed to be an attempt to convince the high-profile audience that Dili deserved a seat in the Southeast Asian bloc. 

"We have a very low foreign debt, which only reaches 13 percent of our GDP [gross domestic product],” Ramos-Horta said when delivering his policy speech before ASEAN’s diplomats.

For context, this is less than half of Indonesia’s foreign debt-to-GDP ratio of around 30.6 percent, according to the central bank. Ramos-Horta then went on to talk about his country’s Petroleum Fund. The country deposits its oil revenues in this fund, which will invest the money in international assets. 

The fund was originally entirely banked on US Treasury bonds after being founded in 2005. However, the agency diversified sometime around 2009 by shifting 40 percent of its investments to other bonds, developed market bonds, equities, stock markets, and so on.

“In 10 years, these investments have returned to us about more than $10 billion. … This is [coming] from a country that has next to zero experience in international finance and economics,” Ramos-Horta said. 

The East Timorese independence figure later talked of the ongoing infrastructure projects, many of which were foreign-backed -- in particular, the Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport. In 2021, Timor-Leste secured a $135 million loan with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the expansion project that encompasses runway extension and an air traffic control tower. Dili also inked a financial agreement worth $73.36 million to redevelop the airport the following year. Indonesia’s state-run construction firm Waskita Karya won the tender for the expansion. These upgrades are set to be ready by 2027, according to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

"It seems like everything is ready for us to join ASEAN in October this year," Ramos-Horta told the forum.

He also once again made fun of Dili’s admission struggles, even joking that it was “more difficult” to knock on ASEAN’s doors than heaven's.

“Nothing compares with the bureaucracy of ASEAN. If you have a sin, just go to the priest and confess. Say a few prayers and you die that evening, you go straight to heaven. ASEAN is much more complicated than that,” Ramos-Horta said.

In 2022, ASEAN agreed to admit Timor-Leste as its 11th member "in principle". The country has enjoyed an observer status since then, and has participated in the group's meetings. Over the past years, Timor-Leste has been trying to follow an ASEAN-made roadmap that specifies working plans on economy and security, among others, that Dili has to carry out before gaining full membership.