How East Timor, ASEAN's newest member and once a middle-income country, became poor in two decades

Just over two decades after gaining independence, East Timor has officially joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), becoming the bloc's 11th member and its first new entrant since the 1990s.

Asia's youngest and Southeast Asia's poorest nation gained freedom from Indonesia in 2002.

A nation once rich in oil and gas

When Timor-Leste became independent in 2002, it gained control over huge oil and gas fields in the sea between Timor and Australia, called Bayu-Undan and Greater Sunrise. By the mid-2000s, almost all the government's revenue, about 95%, came from oil and gas.

In 2005, the government created a Petroleum Fund to manage this wealth. However, since 2008, the government has been spending more than what's considered safe to take out from this fund. But the wealth