Between the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure and the private sector, 2025 saw a renewed focus on investing in infrastructure as an economic tool that supplements the country’s urgent infrastructure needs with steady economic growth.
The prevailing sentiment between the public and private sectors includes increased co-operation through public-private partnerships, a clampdown on corruption, including ways to manage the “construction mafia, as well as stressing the link between infrastructure investment and economic growth.
As we enter 2026, the FNB/Bureau of Economic Research’s 2025 outlooks reveal the views of various stakeholders on the infrastructure outlook for the new year. The index system used is points-based and represents a percentage of positive outlook.
Building confidence
The FNB Building Confidence Index measures the business confidence of all major role players and suppliers involved in the building industry, including architects, quantity surveyors, contractors, subcontractors, retail merchants, and manufacturers of building materials. The index is compiled quarterly from the building, manufacturing, retail and wholesale opinion surveys undertaken by the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) at Stellenbosch University.
The end of Q1 2025 showed that confidence was at 41, which slowly decreased through the year until December, where the year ended on a high of 43 points. This shows that sentiment slowly grew more confident throughout the year, and this optimistic trend means a steady, confident start to 2026.
Civil confidence
Siphamandla Mkhwanazi, Senior Economist at FNB
According to the FNB/BER Civil Confidence Index, sentiment rose to 52 points in the last quarter of 2025 from 43 in Q3, a joint 11-year high. The index notes that the improvement in the business mood was supported by significantly better readings for activity growth and overall profitability.
Siphamandla Mkhwanazi, Senior Economist at FNB, says this points to a less pronounced decline in activity resulting from renewable and mining projects. While this is “not surprising” according to Mkhwanazi, the cluster of activity around renewables and mining shows that key reforms in other areas of the economy are still lacking.
FNB does state that this improved sentiment is in line with the increased activity and increased profitability, reaching its highest level since 2007.
Looking into 2026, analysts are optimistic. Mkhwanazi says, “The civil construction survey is the best non-official gauge for infrastructure investment. On that score, the survey results are quite positive.”
