NICOSIA, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- International rating agency Standard & Poor's raised Cyprus's credit rating from stable to positive, Finance Minister Constantinos Petrides said in a statement on Saturday.

He said Standard & Poor's, by revising their Cyprus rating from stable to positive and affirming its "BBB-/A-3" ratings reflected the agency could upgrade the eastern Mediterranean island within the next 24 months, if the country's economic and budgetary performance continued to strengthen, supported by the government's implementation of structural reforms.

Standard & Poor's said that measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 while safeguarding incomes and shielding businesses should continue to support a strong economic recovery and better external performance for Cyprus over the next 24 months.

It also noted that disbursements from the EU resilience and recovery plan, coupled with the related progress in structural economic and budgetary reforms, will further improve the country's economic prospects and help the government debt to GDP to return to a steep downward path.

Standard & Poor's also said that proactive debt management by the government has yielded significant improvements in the government debt profile.

Cypriot Ministry of Finance revised in August its projections of GDP growth for 2021 to 5.1 percent, up by 1.8 percentage points from its previous estimates. Enditem

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