The Rand weakened against the US Dollar in early morning trading and is expected to weaken further over the course of the week if important domestic economic data comes in weaker-than-expected.
Tuesday sees the release of South Africa’s latest Gross Domestic Product data which will give a full picture of the struggling nation’s economic growth for 2012 and will give the markets a clearer indication whether the government’s growth prediction of 2.7% is too ambitious. The figure is unlikely to be achieved following the problems that have plagued South Africa’s key industries of agriculture and mining. Only last week the possibility of renewed violence between rival unions threatened to erupt once more after several miners were wounded in violent clashes.
The South African economy has also been affected by slowdowns in its key trading partners. The Eurozone, which is South Africa biggest market, is still struggling to exit the Euro crisis and is slipping deeper into recession. China too is showing signs of a slowdown after its latest manufacturing PMI showed that the world’s second largest economy expanded at its slowest rate in four months.
John Cairns, a currency strategist at Rand Merchant Bank in Johannesburg, said; “The GDP number could generate some rand weakness if we are correct in our expectation of a weak number, while there is a large two-way risk, the potential for sharp rand weakness seems greater than for sharp rand gains.”
Current ZAR Exchange Rates
The South African Rand to Euro exchange rate is currently trading at 0.0852
The South African Rand to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1128
The South African Rand to Pound Sterling exchange rate is currently trading at 0.0745
The South African Rand to Australian Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1096
The South African Rand to New Zealand Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1345
The South African Rand to Canadian Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 0.1155
These exchange rates were correct as of 10:15 am GMT
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