Fitch Ratings expects South Africa\u2019s debt as a percentage of gross domestic product to start rising again in the year through March 2029, mainly due to weak economic growth, challenging National Treasury and Moody\u2019s Ratings\u2019 projections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fitch still expects debt to stabilise at about 78% of GDP over the next two fiscal years, a key factor behind its June decision to upgrade South Africa to BB, two notches below investment grade, with a stable outlook, it said in a statement on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNevertheless, unlike the government, we expect debt to GDP to very modestly rise again\u201d in 2028-29 to 79% of GDP, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, in his medium-term budget statement last week, said that debt peaked at 78.4% of GDP in 2025-26 and will decline to 76.6% by 2029-30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moody\u2019s also sees debt on a downward path. The company, whose measure includes most government guarantees to state-owned enterprises, said Friday that debt peaked in the last fiscal year and is set for a \u201cclear, albeit gradual\u201d decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moody\u2019s described the budget update as credit-positive, as it shows fiscal consolidation remains on track despite higher oil prices, tighter monetary policy, and weaker nominal GDP growth than assumed in February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it cautioned that the nation has limited fiscal space to absorb shocks. Moody\u2019s also rates South Africa two notches below investment grade, with a positive outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its next review of South Africa is expected on 27 November, and Fitch Ratings\u2019 on 11 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fitch Ratings expects South Africa’s debt-to-GDP ratio to rise, challenging the National Treasury’s projection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":798537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2114965830270095668","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2250608255759573","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17878204350574091","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[2510,1512,9194,3796],"class_list":["post-881502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-fitch","tag-moodys","tag-mtbps","tag-national-treasury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881502","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=881502"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881508,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881502\/revisions\/881508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}