On 20 - 22 August 2025, H.E. Mr. Paisan Rupanichkij, Deputy Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs, together with Mr. Chulvat Narinthrangura, Director-General of the Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), paid a visit to Timor-Leste.

The Deputy Permanent Secretary, along with H.E. Mr. Atipat Rojanapaibulya, Ambassador of Thailand to Timor-Leste, and the delegation held a meeting with H.E. Ms. Milena Maria da Costa, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Timor-Leste, as well as representatives from relevant departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Timor-Leste. The discussions aimed to strengthen bilateral relations and advance development cooperation between Thailand and Timor-Leste. The Thai side expressed its readiness to support Timor-Leste in the latter’s preparations to join ASEAN as a Member State within this year, and to advance the progress of the three-year development cooperation plan between the two countries.

In addition, the Deputy Permanent Secretary and the delegation also met with Mr. Nelson Santos, Foreign Affairs Advisor to the President of Timor-Leste, and Mr. David Freedman, World Bank Group representative in Timor-Leste, to exchange views and explore potential opportunities for cooperation projects between Thailand and Timor-Leste in areas that would benefit the improvement of the quality of life for the people of Timor-Leste.

Over the past 10 years, Thailand and Timor-Leste have maintained close cooperation in human resource development, with more than 120 participants from Timor-Leste attending training programs under the Thailand International Postgraduate Programme (TIPP) and Annual International Training Courses (AITC) in various fields, such as public health, agriculture, and the application of the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP). This visit to Timor-Leste therefore provided an important opportunity to hold the first TICA Alumni Gathering in Dili, in collaboration with the Royal Thai Embassy in Dili, with the goals to strengthen network ties among Timor-Leste scholarship recipients and to follow up on feedback from training programs aimed at enhancing human resource capacity in targeted fields, all of which will serve to improve curricula and design training programs aligned with Timor-Leste’s future skill development.