Australia tells East Timor to watch out for Chinese debt on gas project
- Foreign minister Penny Wong said she discussed with East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta ways to revive the stalled Greater Sunrise project
- Ramos-Horta said last month that he was prepared to turn to China for funds to operate the US$50 billion gas field
Penny Wong said she discussed with East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta the Greater Sunrise, a US$50 billion gas field beneath the seabed that separates their two countries.
Ramos-Horta said last month that he was prepared to turn to China to fund the Tasi Mane infrastructure project that would pipe Greater Sunrise gas to East Timor.
Wong declined to say whether Ramos-Horta discussed bringing in Chinese partners, saying “I don’t tend to come out with a readout of everything we discuss.”
She said Australian development assistance came with a “spirit of wanting” East Timor, a half-island nation with a population of 1.5 million, to be more resilient.
“We know that economic resilience can be effected, can be constrained by unsustainable debt burdens or lenders who have different objectives,” Wong told reporters in the East Timorese capital Dili. “We, Australia, we seek to help make your country stronger.”
