South Africa is on track to meet key fiscal targets, Treasury head says
Update: 2025-10-10
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South Africa is on track to meet key fiscal targets, Treasury head says
South Africa is on track to meet its two main fiscal targets this year, stabilising its public debt and increasing the size of its primary budget surplus, the head of the National Treasury told Reuters.
"We are in a period of fairly healthy budget dynamics," Director-General Duncan Pieterse said in an interview. "Our expectation is that we will meet our primary balance target and we will meet our debt-to-GDP target."
Africa's biggest economy has struggled to curb rising public debt after more than a decade of runaway spending that outpaced revenue growth.
But this year the fiscal picture looks much better, with Treasury data for the first five months of the 2025/26 financial year showing revenue is up more than 10% and spending only about 4%.
Pieterse said spending had slowed in part because of the protracted approval of this year's main budget, which was held up for months by political wrangling between the two main coalition partners, the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance.
"There was a little bit of uncertainty at the beginning of the year because we were still busy finalising the budget and our sense is that uncertainty has found its way through into spending," said Pieterse.
South Africa is on track to meet its two main fiscal targets this year, stabilising its public debt and increasing the size of its primary budget surplus, the head of the National Treasury told Reuters.
"We are in a period of fairly healthy budget dynamics," Director-General Duncan Pieterse said in an interview. "Our expectation is that we will meet our primary balance target and we will meet our debt-to-GDP target."
Africa's biggest economy has struggled to curb rising public debt after more than a decade of runaway spending that outpaced revenue growth.
But this year the fiscal picture looks much better, with Treasury data for the first five months of the 2025/26 financial year showing revenue is up more than 10% and spending only about 4%.
Pieterse said spending had slowed in part because of the protracted approval of this year's main budget, which was held up for months by political wrangling between the two main coalition partners, the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance.
"There was a little bit of uncertainty at the beginning of the year because we were still busy finalising the budget and our sense is that uncertainty has found its way through into spending," said Pieterse.
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