There are countries with close ties of friendship with Mozambique committed to empowering and financing the fight against terrorism in Cabo Delgado province, to seek to prevent the "risk of enlargement" of armed incursions into neighboring areas, said the Minister of Economy and Finance, Max Tonela.

Asked who will bear the expenses of the foreign troops that are ensuring security improvements in Cabo Delgado, the minister afirmed that the financing issues are assured by Southern African Development Community (SADC) mechanisms.

The Mozambican finance official said that, currently, the financial support mechanisms are taking place at the SADC level, stressing that "this is not the first time that SADC troops are in a member country" and that there are, therefore, "mechanisms [long ago] agreed upon by the countries of the organization.

Max Tonela was speaking at the Mozambican Embassy, in Washington DC, where he attended the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB).

According to Max Tonela, with regard to the cooperation with Rwanda, which is within the framework of bilateral cooperation, it was done with the objective of the countries to control the (terrorist) situation in mind.

"The view of SADC and the countries in the region is that if the situation is not contained where it is the risk of enlargement for all the other countries is very high," he said.

According to the minister, it is from this perspective that there are friendly countries to finance, including European countries, and to enable, including the United States of America, because the view is that the situation must be contained and eliminated.

Cabo Delgado province is rich in natural gas, but terrorized since 2017 by armed rebels, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

The military tension has forced changes to the deadlines for the construction of onshore infrastructure for natural gas exploration, but Max Tonela believes it will be possible to make up for lost time.

"We hope that there will be conditions so that the onshore project already started can happen in the short term and conditions so that the second project can also especially given the opportunities generated by the current conjuncture sooner than initially planned," afirmou.