Díli, March 18 th 2025

H.E. the Minister of Planning and Strategic Investment, Mr. Gastão de Sousa, together with ADB’s Country Director, the President of CCI-TL and the Executive Director of CNA, opened the 3-day training (March 18-20,2025) on Procurement Policies and Practices for Government Entities and Local Construction Companies in Timor-Leste”, promoted by the ADB at the Novo Turismo Hotel in Lecidere, Dili. During the opening session, ADB’s Country Director, Ms. Stefania Dina, highlighted the fact that this is the first training attended by local Timorese companies towards improving their knowledge in terms of tenders’ participation and bidding documents.

The President of the CCI-TL, Mr. Jorge Manuel Serrano, thanked H. E. Minister Gastão as well as the ADB for organizing such event and requested the local entrepreneurs to participate actively in order to improve their knowledge and therefore to have more opportunities while competing in future national and international tenders.

In his speech, H.E. the Minister of Planning and Strategic Investment, Mr. Gastão de Sousa, emphasized the importance of this training for the qualification of local companies, stating that local entrepreneurs need to know the rules well in order to prepare bids with quality which will enable them to win tenders and thus to implement Government’s’ works with quality. The Minister further stated that the Government continues to provide assistance to the private sector through training provided by experts from ADB and CNA. After the opening session, CNA’s Executive Director, Mr. Hermingardo Soares, presented briefly on ADB’s technical and financial support following with a summary on the procurement rules in Timor-Leste.

The Executive Director highlighted that, currently, CNA follows Decree-Law No. 22/2022, May 11, but that from the 1 st of June 2025 on, Decree-Law No. 01/2025 will come into force. This new law will give preference to local companies to take part in the national development. However, the tender process will still follow the governmental system which requires companies to have good technical and financial capacity. In addition to local companies, the training was also attended by MPW, MPS, ADN. IP and CNA’s staff.