Timor-Leste: East Timor’s Oil Resource: Boon or Bane?

Nov 21, 2014 | Mong Palatino, The Diplomat
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Questions have emerged over the performance of East Timor’s Petroleum Fund, reviving discussion about whether the country is suffering from a “resource curse” caused by an over dependence on oil revenues.

East Timor’s Central Bank published a report shows net cash inflows of $177 million for the fund in its most recent quarter, a modest figure which the Timor-Leste Central Bank said reflected “payments to the state budget.” However, local non-governmental organization Lao Hamutuk, which has been monitoring the growth of the Oil Fund since 2005, has insisted that it is more accurate to state that the total fund actually decreased, from $16.634 billion at the beginning of the quarter to $16.584 billion at the end of September.