The finance minister said Tuesday that the Cabo Delgado region has recorded an average recession of 3.4% since the attacks began in 2017, which contrasts with growth of 6% since 2011.

"Cabo Delgado was growing at 6% per year on average from 2011 to 2017, but from then to 2020 the figure is -3.4%, that's the economic impact on the ground," said Adriano Maleiane during the fourth Forum on Resilience in Africa.

"We have lost 5,000 Small and Medium Enterprises [SMEs], which means that there is $600 million that has been lost, in addition to the 800,000 people who have been displaced," he added in his opening remarks at the panel 'The nexus between security, economic growth and investment'.

In addition, he added, "there are 284 companies directly linked to these activities that stopped, and more than 47,000 workers were left without work, there were 2,000 small direct contracts that stopped as well, and if the situation doesn't improve, we will be in a very difficult time."

Access to financing, he lamented, is not easy for Mozambique either.

"We have to rebuild, and for that we need money that is not available," Maleiane lamented, recalling that the debt bond linked to security situations, advocated today by the president of the ADB, "is more than appropriate for Mozambique."

Cabo Delgado, concluded the initial intervention minister, "is a real problem, and the solution will have to come from the budget, but it will be very, very difficult to accommodate this fiscal pressure."

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 conflict has led to more than 3,100 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project, and more than 817,000 displaced people, according to the authorities.

Lusa Agency