At around R12.30 against the dollar on Friday (5 January), the rand is currently enjoying highs last seen in mid-2015 against the US currency following the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as the new leader of the ANC.<\/p>\n
According to strategists polled by\u00a0Reuters<\/a><\/strong> on Friday, this is\u00a0just about fair value for the currency, although, technical indicators suggest the rand is overbought.<\/p>\n There are also doubts\u00a0about how much\u00a0Ramaphosa, a promised reformer, can do for South Africa\u2019s ailing economy, with the polled strategists saying that the rand is likely\u00a0to weaken by as much as 12% by the end of 2018.<\/p>\n This could see the local unit at R13.85 against the dollar by the end of the year<\/strong> – a smaller decline than the R14.30 predicted during 2018 in a previous poll.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is still going to be a challenging year. There is some scope for the rand to appreciate, but investors will be looking closely at how quickly Ramaphosa will be able to make progress on structural reforms,\u201d said Piotr Matys, a strategist at Rabobank.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa won the race to be leader of the ANC but failed to decisively take control of South Africa\u2019s ruling party from Jacob Zuma. His incomplete victory could therefore hinder his chances of implementing reforms to stimulate economic growth, which he placed at the centre of his campaign for the ANC\u2019s top job.<\/p>\n A separate Reuters poll in December put growth for 2018 at 1.2% from a 0.9% estimate in 2017.<\/p>\n