The director of Standard & Poor's (S&P) sovereign ratings department told Lusa on Sunday that the arrival of Rwandan troops in northern Mozambique was one of the main positive developments in the African country.

"The biggest change in the outlook was the arrival of troops from Rwanda, as the Mozambican military forces were not containing the insurgency in the north, which affected TotalEnergies' investment, which was suspended for a few months," said Ravi Bathia, commenting on S&P's view on the evolution of the Mozambican economy.

"Rwandan troops support the forces of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the stabilization of the region, and this has helped a lot," the analyst said in an interview with Lusa.

"Our expectation is that this will help stabilize the region and TotalEnergies will resume operations after the insurgency is under control, and the question many are asking is what Rwanda wants in return for the aid and how long the military will stay in the region, but overall the trend is positive and the liquefied natural gas projects should be up and running again," he explained.

"The most positive thing for the CCC+ rating is the stabilization of the north of the country by foreign forces. Mozambique could not solve the problem by itself and they asked for help, this gives stability, but the cleavages between the north and the south of the country are still there, even by the very physical distance between Maputo and these northern provinces," concluded the analyst.