Portuguese colonial era The place now known as Dili has had a port since at least as far back as 1726. That year, as part of the efforts of the
governor of Portuguese Timor, , sought to put down the , a force under the command of Goncalo de Magalhaes was assembled at that place, already a Portuguese port of call, to advance upon
Cailaco via the heights of
Ermera. In 1769, a later governor of Portuguese Timor,
António José Teles de Meneses, sought to break the influence of
powerful local families in
Lifau,
Oecusse, his then residence, by moving the colonial administration and 1,200 people to the site of what would become Dili. According to
John Crawfurd, writing in 1820, between 10 and 12 English ships would put in to Dili each year to re-provision during the
British occupation of the Moluccas between 1810 and 1814. Such minimal facilities as existed at the port immediately before the start of the
Battle of Timor in 1942 were extensively damaged during that battle, and the
Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies that followed it. More than a decade after World War II ended, the port was restored under governor Colonel (1959–1963). Later, under governor (1963–1968), it was modernised and expanded. With new warehouses, it became able to serve ships up to 7,000
GRT, such as the
India and the
Timor of the . Historian Geoffrey Gunn has asserted that "[t]he development of Dili's port facilities in the 1960s was laudable but also tended to benefit big importers and exporters."On 7 December 1975,
Indonesian troops landed in Dili. After capturing the city, the Indonesians led Chinese residents, members of Fretilin and other prisoners to the port area, shot them, and threw their bodies into the sea. Eyewitnesses later reported that there were dozens of bodies. The victims included suffragette
Rosa Bonaparte, her brother ,
Isabel Barreto Lobato (wife of Fretilin-appointed
Prime Minister Nicolau dos Reis Lobato) and
Roger East, the last remaining foreign reporter in Dili. The total number of people executed on the Dili waterfront is estimated at 150.
1975–1999 During the ensuing
Indonesian occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999, the port had international status, although access to it was limited by its moderate depth of . From 1984, it was managed by a
state-owned enterprise; with its large capital costs and limited turnover, it was difficult to operate profitably. Korean, Japanese and Singaporean cargo ships docked at the port regularly, except towards the end of the occupation; only one Singaporean ship arrived in 1998, and no international ships at all berthed there in the first half of 1999. As of mid-1999, the port had a harbor master building, transshipment warehouse, five other warehouses, and an administration building. All were in good condition. The harbour had a beach-landing site with a rock-concrete ramp, and the port a hard stand and a container yard, but no container handling equipment. At least nominally, vessels with a maximum length of and of draft could dock. and there were no harbor cranes to offload cargo. Under international pressure, the
President of Indonesia,
B. J. Habibie, announced on 12 September 1999 that Indonesia would withdraw its soldiers from the territory, and allow an Australian-led international peacekeeping force,
INTERFET, to enter. Shortly afterwards, the Central Maritime Hotel was towed to Dili and moored close to the port's wharf. A former Russian hospital ship that had been converted into a floating luxury hotel, it remained in Dili for several years. Prior to its arrival, Dili had no landbound hotels or restaurants suitable for international visitors. In 2000,
United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), which had taken over the administration of East Timor, asked the
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to conduct a study aimed at developing a plan for the urgent rehabilitation for various items of infrastructure, including the port. JICA presented its report of the study to UNTAET in August 2000. As of the 2010s, the Port of Dili was the main and only international port of entry to Timor-Leste. It was struggling to cope with its volume of cargo and could not be expanded due to the physical constraints of its location. The depth alongside the wharf was such that only small container ships could berth alongside, and the berths and approach channel required frequent dredging. Larger ships were forced to unload onto lighters, causing delays and added costs. Further, the apron and container stacking areas were in poor condition due to lack of maintenance. Only one container gantry was available, with a capacity of ; there was no dockside crane. The main onshore method for loading and unloading cargo was mobile cranes operated by private companies. The 30-year
Tibar Bay Port concession contract was the first
public-private partnership (PPP) ever undertaken in Timor-Leste. At a value of , it was also the country's largest ever private investment. Construction was declared to be underway in June 2017 and August 2018, and was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020. However, issues with funding and subcontracting delayed progress, and the official ceremony launching the project was not held until 15 July 2019. In mid-2021, the
Timor-Leste Council of Ministers approved "a plan to develop an international-standard marina complex" on the Port of Dili site. The government, the port authority and technical experts had been working with USAID's Tourism For All project for the previous two years to put together a proposal for a PPP to transform the port into a "tourism hub". According to the government's announcement of the plan: On 30 September 2022, Tibar Bay Port came into operation, and the facilities at the Port of Dili were closed to container ships. Since then, the facilities have been open only to domestic passenger ships and cruise ships carrying international tourists. The Timor-Leste government announcement about the ceremony stated: Financing for the project was estimated at under the PPP model. ==Operations==