{"id":829571,"date":"2025-06-26T11:42:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T09:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=829571"},"modified":"2025-06-26T11:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T09:44:09","slug":"some-of-the-best-news-in-16-years-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/829571\/some-of-the-best-news-in-16-years-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Some of the best news in 16 years for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa achieved its first back-to-back primary budget surplus in 16 years, signalling its commitment to fiscal discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa\u2019s most-industrialized economy posted a primary surplus \u2014 where revenue exceeds non-interest expenditure \u2014 of R48.9 billion or 0.7% of gross domestic product in the year through March 2025, the South African Reserve Bank\u2019s Quarterly Bulletin on Thursday showed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That matched the National Treasury\u2019s May budget forecast, but missed its 2024 estimate of R61 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNational government realized a primary surplus of R48.9 billion in fiscal 2024-25, which was higher than the surplus of R33 billion recorded in the previous fiscal year,\u201d the central bank said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government increased total revenue by R83.4 billion, to R1.8 trillion during the 2024-25 fiscal year on the back of increased tax collections across all the main categories, the bank said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Treasury in its May budget forecast the primary surplus to grow over the next three years and anticipates the debt to GDP ratio to stabilize in 2025-26 at a higher level than previously estimated of 77.4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is largely because of slower growth because of geopolitical tensions from US President Donald Trump\u2019s trade war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time these developments \u201cshould help contain the growth in debt-service costs, which currently absorb 22 cents of every rand, resources that could otherwise strengthen fiscal buffers and fund services such as health, education and security,\u201d Treasury\u2019s Director General Duncan Pieterse said in an opinion piece last month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The surplus is likely to be viewed positively by investors and the government of national unity which delivered its first budget since its formation a year ago, after months of political wrangling over proposed tax increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data also bodes well for South Africa\u2019s assets, which have had a high-risk premium because of the country\u2019s debt levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary budget balance has been South Africa\u2019s main fiscal anchor since 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa achieved its first back-to-back primary budget surplus in 16 years, signaling its commitment to fiscal discipline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":667097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[1629,3796],"class_list":["post-829571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-budget","tag-national-treasury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829576,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829571\/revisions\/829576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}