Elon Musk eyes small South African town, and Transnet to get more government guarantees

The South African rand declined on Thursday following the release of disappointing local mining output figures. It traded at 17.79 against the dollar, which is a 0.2% drop compared to Wednesday’s close.

According to Statistics South Africa, the country’s mining output decreased by 7.7% year-on-year in April, marking the sixth consecutive monthly decline. Analysts surveyed by Reuters had anticipated a production decline of only 4.3%.

The risk-sensitive rand, which is influenced by global factors such as U.S. policy and economic data, fell nearly 1% earlier in the day after U.S. producer prices rose less than expected in May.

This suggests that the Federal Reserve may increase the pace of its easing cycle.

On Friday, 13 June, the rand was trading at R17.96 to the dollar, R24.32 to the pound and R20.70 to the euro. Oil was trading slightly lower at $75.65 a barrel.

Here are five other important things happening in and affecting South Africa today:

Elon Musk eyes small town: Elon Musk is interested in launching SpaceX rockets from the Denel Overberg test site in Arniston, near Cape Town. Experts say this location is valuable for deploying satellites over the South Pole and Starlink satellites for consumer broadband services. [Daily Maverick]

More bailouts for Transnet: The government is considering more guarantees for Transnet, adding to the R51 billion announced last month, as the company faces R99.6 billion in debt repayments over the next five years. [Business Day]

Electricity pain coming: Households across the country need to brace for significant electricity price hikes to hit from 1 July, as municipalities prepare to implement above-inflation tariff increases. [BusinessTech]

Sports-only DStv packages: Multichoice is investigating unbundling its popular SuperSport line-up from its other DStv channels as part of a broad channel composition review to address changing consumer preferences. [MyBroadband]

The cost of BEE in South Africa: A new study by the Free Market Foundation (FMF) and the Solidarity Research Institute (SRI) estimates that BEE has cost South Africa R5 trillion and resulted in 4 million job losses. Compared to global affirmative action policies in countries like Malaysia, India, and the US, it finds South Africa’s black economic empowerment to be the most intrusive and damaging economically. [Daily Investor]