Over the last 12 years, Treasury’s projection of where the debt-to-GDP ratio will stabilise has drifted steadily higher. This reflected, among other things, a persistent primary deficit and repeated downward revisions to growth and revenue projections. There was, however, a meaningful improvement in the debt profile between the 2021 and 2022 Budget Reviews. Contributors to this improvement included the upward revision to the level of South Africa’s GDP (by 11% in 2020, for example) and upward revisions to the growth and primary balance projections in the 2022 Budget Review.
