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Main article: Economy of East Timor

East Timor Export Treemap, 2010 East Timor has a market economy that used to depend upon exports of a few commodities such as coffee, marble, oil and sandalwood. East Timor's economy grew by about 10% in 2011, and at a similar rate in 2012.

Timor now has revenue from offshore oil and gas reserves, but little of it has gone to develop villages, which still rely on subsistence farming. Nearly half the population lives in extreme poverty.Widespread corruption, unchecked by a weak judicial system, is a considerable drag on the economy.

The Timor-Leste Petroleum Fund was established in 2005, and by 2011 it had reached a worth of US$8.7 billion. East Timor is labelled by the International Monetary Fund as the "most oil-dependent economy in the world". The Petroleum Fund pays for nearly all of the government's annual budget, which has increased from $70 million in 2004 to $1.3 billion in 2011, with a $1.8 billion proposal for 2012.

The economy is dependent on government spending and, to a lesser extent, assistance from international donors. Private sector development has lagged due to human capital shortages, infrastructure weakness, an incomplete legal system, and an inefficient regulatory environment. After petroleum, the second largest export is coffee, which generates about $10 million a year. Starbucks is a major purchaser of East Timorese coffee.

According to data gathered in the 2010 census, 87.7% of urban and 18.9% of rural households have electricity, for an overall average of 36.7%.

The agriculture sector employs 80% of the active population.In 2009, about 67,000 households grew coffee in East Timor, with a large proportion being poor. Currently, the gross margins are about $120 per hectare, with returns per labor-day of about $3.70. There are 11,000 households growing mung beans as of 2009, most of them subsistence farmers.

The country was ranked 169th overall and last in the East Asia and Pacific region by the Doing Business 2013 report by the World Bank. The country fared particularly poorly in the 'registering property', 'enforcing contracts' and 'resolving insolvency' categories, ranking last worldwide in all three.

The Portuguese colonial administration granted concessions to the Oceanic Exploration Corporation to develop petroleum and natural gas deposits in the waters southeast of Timor. However, this was curtailed by the Indonesian invasion in 1976.[citation needed] The resources were divided between Indonesia and Australia with the Timor Gap Treaty in 1989. East Timor inherited no permanent maritime boundaries when it attained independence.[citation needed] A provisional agreement (the Timor Sea Treaty, signed when East Timor became independent on 20 May 2002) defined a Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA) and awarded 90% of revenues from existing projects in that area to East Timor and 10% to Australia. A 2005 agreement between the governments of East Timor and Australia mandated that both countries put aside their dispute over maritime boundaries and that East Timor would receive 50% of the revenues from the resource exploitation in the area (estimated at A$26 billion, or about US$20 billion over the lifetime of the project) from the Greater Sunrise development.

In 2007, a bad harvest led to deaths in several parts of East Timor. In November 2007, eleven subdistricts still needed food supplied by international aid.[53]

There are no patent laws in East Timor.

Demographics[edit]

An East Timorese in traditional dress Historical populations Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1980 555,350 — 1990 747,557 3.02% 2001 787,340 0.47% 2004 923,198 5.45% 2010 1,066,582 2.44% Source: 2010 census[55] Main article: Demographics of East Timor The population of East Timor is about 1,143,667.[6] The population is especially concentrated in the area around Dili.[citation needed]

The word Maubere (de), formerly used by the Portuguese to refer to native East Timorese and often employed as synonymous with the illiterate and uneducated, was adopted by Fretilin as a term of pride.[56] They consist of a number of distinct ethnic groups, most of whom are of mixed Malayo-Polynesian and Melanesian/Papuan descent.[citation needed] The largest Malayo-Polynesian ethnic groups are the Tetum (100,000), primarily in the north coast and around Dili; the Mambae (80,000), in the central mountains; the Tukudede (63,170), in the area around Maubara and Liquiçá; the Galoli (50,000), between the tribes of Mambae and Makasae; the Kemak (50,000) in north-central Timor island; and the Baikeno (20,000), in the area around Pante Macassar.[citation needed]

The main tribes of predominantly Papuan origin include the Bunak (50,000), in the central interior of Timor island; the Fataluku (30,000), at the eastern tip of the island near Lospalos; and the Makasae, toward the eastern end of the island.[citation needed] As a result of interracial marriage which was common during the Portuguese era, there is a population of people of mixed East Timorese and Portuguese origin, known in Portuguese as mestiços. There is a small Chinese minority, most of whom are Hakka. Many Chinese left in the mid-1970s.

Religion[edit] Main article: Religion in East Timor

Bald (de) church, Dili According to the 2010 census, 96.9% of the population are Catholic, 2.2% are Protestant or Evangelical, 0.3% are Muslim, while 0.5% practice some other or no religion. In rural areas, Catholicism is practiced along with local traditions. The number of churches has grown from 100 in 1974 to over 800 in 1994.[61]

The principles of freedom of religion and separation of state and church are enshrined in the section 45, comma 1 of the East Timorese constitution. Upon independence, East Timor became one of only two predominantly Roman Catholic countries in Asia (along with the Philippines), although nearby parts of eastern Indonesia also have Catholic majorities, including West Timor and Flores.

The Roman Catholic Church divides East Timor into three dioceses: the Diocese of Díli, the Diocese of Baucau and the Diocese of Maliana.[63] Church membership grew considerably under Indonesian rule, as Indonesia's state ideology Pancasila does not recognize traditional beliefs and requires all citizens to believe in God.[citation needed] The constitution acknowledges "the participation of the Catholic Church in the process of national liberation" of East Timor.

Languages Main article: Languages of East Timor

Biggest language groups in sucos of East Timor. East Timor's two official languages are Portuguese and Tetum. Tetum belongs to the Austronesian family of languages spoken throughout Southeast Asia.[64]

The 2010 census found that the most commonly spoken mother tongues were Tetum Prasa (mother tongue for 36.6% of the population), Mambai (12.5%), Makasai (9.7%), Tetum Terik (6.0%), Baikenu (5.9%), Kemak (5.9%), Bunak (5.3%), Tokodede (3.7%), Fataluku (3.6%). Other indigenous languages largely accounted for the remaining 10.9%, while Portuguese was spoken natively by just under 600 people.

Under Indonesian rule the use of Portuguese was banned, and only Indonesian was allowed to be used in government offices, schools and public business.[66] During the Indonesian occupation, Tetum and Portuguese were important unifying elements for the East Timorese people in opposing Javanese culture. It was adopted as one of the two official languages for this reason and as a link to nations in other parts of the world. It is now being taught and promoted with the help of Brazil, Portugal, and the Latin Union.[citation needed]

Indonesian and English are defined as working languages under the Constitution in the Final and Transitional Provisions, without setting a final date. Aside from Tetum, Ethnologue lists the following indigenous languages: Adabe, Baikeno, Bunak, Fataluku, Galoli, Habun, Idaté, Kairui-Midiki, Kemak, Lakalei, Makasae, Makuv'a, Mambae, Nauete, Tukudede, Waima'a.[68] It is estimated that English is understood by 31.4% of the population. 23.5% speak, read and write Portuguese, which is up significantly from less than 5% in the 2006 UN Development Report.

East Timor is a member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, and a member of the Latin Union.

According to the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, there are six endangered languages in East Timor: adobe, Habu, Kairui-Midiki, Maku'a, Naueti, Waima'a.

Culture.

Main article: Culture of East Timor The culture of East Timor reflects numerous influences, including Portuguese, Roman Catholic, and Indonesian, on the indigenous Austronesian and Melanesian cultures of Timor. East Timorese culture is heavily influenced by Austronesian legends. For example, East Timorese creation myth has it that an aging crocodile transformed into the island of Timor as part of a debt repayment to a young boy who had helped the crocodile when it was sick.[73] As a result of that transformation, the island is shaped like a crocodile and the boy's descendants are the native East Timorese who inhabit the island. The phrase "leaving the crocodile" refers to the pained exile of East Timorese from their island.

There is also a strong tradition[clarification needed] of poetry in the country.[citation needed] Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, for example, is a distinguished poet.[citation needed] architectural, Portuguese-style buildings can be found, along with the traditional totem houses of the eastern region. These are known as Uma lulik (sacred houses) in Tetum, and lee teinu (houses with legs) in Fataluku.[citation needed] Craftsmanship is also widespread, as is the weaving of traditional scarves or tais.[citation needed]

Sports organizations joined by East Timor include the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the International Badminton Federation (IBF), joined the Union Cycliste Internationale, the International Weightlifting Federation, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), and East Timor's national football team joined FIFA. East Timorese athletes competed in the 2003 Southeast Asian Games held 2003. In the 2003 ASEAN Paralympics Games, East Timor won a bronze medal. In the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, East Timorese athletes participated in athletics, weightlifting and boxing. East Timor won three medals in Arnis at the 2005 Southeast Asian Games. East Timor competed in the first Lusophony Games, and in October 2008, the country earned its first international points in a FIFA match with a 2–2 draw against Cambodia.

An extensive collection of Timorese audiovisual material is held at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. These holdings have been identified in a document titled The NFSA Timor-Leste Collection Profile, which features catalogue entries and essays for a total of 795 NFSA-held moving image, recorded sound and documentation works that have captured the history and culture of Timor-Leste since the early 20th century. The NFSA is working with the Timor-Leste government to ensure that all of this material can be used and accessed by the people of that country.