Asian Development Bank and Timor Leste: Fact Sheet

Abstract

Updated yearly, this ADB Fact Sheet provides social and economic indicators on Timor-Leste as well as concise information on ADB's operations in the country and contact information. Timor-Leste is the world’s newest nation and one of the newest members of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Four years after Timor-Leste’s restoration of independence in May 2002, a functioning state with most of the institutions envisioned in its constitution is already in place. Timor-Leste is secure and stable, with little prospect of a return to the troubles that reached heights of violence in 1999. Against these nation-building achievements, the people of Timor-Leste remain among the poorest in Asia. Set against a stagnant economy and high annual population growth rate in recent years, Timor-Leste has probably seen poverty worsen since 2002, when the country was ranked 140 out 170 countries on the United Nation’s Human Development Index.