The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber says security and reliability of energy supply appears to be top of mind and is considered the critical underlying factor that needs to be resolved to re-energise the economic growth in South Africa.
Reacting to Wednesday's budget speech, Chamber CEO Kevin Hustler, said that Minister Nhlanhla Nene's speech was very balanced and captured the needs of the nation appropriately.
Hustler also welcomed fiscal re-balancing with the focus on cost containment and said that he hoped to see more tangible positive results being yielded from this approach.
Meanwhile, Border Kei Chamber of Business CEO, Les Holbrook, said that there were no surprises in terms of the budget itself.
Holbrook said as far as personal taxes were concerned the Chamber's view was that there would be a withholding of taxes on the upper level and possibly an increase for the lower level.
"The reason why we say that is quite simply South Africa needs more tax payers. Enevitably what the Minister has done is pass the burden on the upper level again,it's a bit of a tough call, however that's the way the Minister sees it. The level of increases in the syntaxes are really high and of course for smokers that's really bad news. However, I think that the biggest shock is the fuel levy." said Holbrook.
Meanwhile, Sanlam investment economist, Arthur Kemp, says there was nothing too exciting in this Budget, other than confirmation that a prudent fiscal path will be followed in order to stabilise government's debt ratio.
He says, faced with a revenue shortfall of R14.7 billion for 2014/2015, Minister Nene announced additional measures to raise revenue.
Kemp says there were relatively limited, amounting to a net R8.3 billion after adjustments for fiscal drag.
On the downside, Kemp said the increases in the ratio of of tax revenue to GDP from 25.2 % to 26.2 %, was discouraging.
