Consulting engineering confidence at a low ebb

Despite remaining relatively optimistic owing to pending projects under South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP), the country’s lack of a concrete pipeline has caused consulting engineers’ confidence to plummet to 36%, matching the business and construction outlooks. There seemed to be little hope for improvement in the short to medium term, and the industry now needed to adapt to a low-growth environment as infrastructure spending was hampered by poor economic growth, lower-than-expected revenue by government, international economic instability and price volatility.