Abstract
This chapter summarizes the main findings in the previous parts of the book and provides some policy suggestions for the future. It emphasizes the previously discussed crucial structural challenges: the need for a modern sector able to provide jobs, the need for a market-oriented agricultural sector, and the need for a government spending policy that is conducive to an efficient diversification of the economy and does not deplete the petroleum fund. It is argued that substantial reforms have to be undertaken for East Timor to reach its ambitious development plans. In particular, sustainable economic and social development requires good, supporting institutions. Laws and regulations that promote economic and social development have to be worked out and implemented. If not, there is a real risk that East Timor, in a few years’ time, will find its oil money gone and with little to show for it.
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Notes
- 1.
Durand (2008), p. 158.
- 2.
Rotberg (2003), p. 5.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Scheiner (2019), p. 101. Second is China (17 percent), third Singapore (12 percent), and fourth Hong Kong (11 percent) (ibid.).
- 6.
15.8 million in 2018 (Sekretariat Kabinet Republik Indonesia 2019).
- 7.
Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (2011a), p. 11.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 16.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 35.
- 11.
According to the latest definition, lower middle-income countries have a GNI per capita of 996–3895 US dollars (World Bank 2018b).
- 12.
World Bank (2018c).
- 13.
Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (2011a), p. 108.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 211.
- 16.
La’o Hamutuk (2011).
- 17.
- 18.
Doraisami (2018), p. 255.
- 19.
- 20.
World Bank (2018c), p. 17.
- 21.
World Bank (2018d), p. 6.
- 22.
Scheiner (2019), p. 89.
- 23.
‘… full implementation of all the SDP projects would result in Timor-Leste having a stock of infrastructure assets to a value considerably higher than that of the average upper-middle income country. This suggests that full implementation of all SDP projects may not be necessary to achieve upper-middle income status’ (World Bank 2015, p. ix).
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Lundahl, M., Sjöholm, F. (2019). Conclusions and a Look to the Future. In: The Creation of the East Timorese Economy. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22052-5_7
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