{"id":69837,"date":"2014-09-30T15:18:33","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T13:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=69837"},"modified":"2014-09-30T15:19:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T13:19:06","slug":"rand-sinks-to-5-year-low-vs-dollar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/69837\/rand-sinks-to-5-year-low-vs-dollar\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand at 5-year low vs dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South African rand hit R11.32 to the US dollar on Tuesday, hitting its lowest point in 5 years.<\/p>\n

The previous low point was a close of R11.30 to the dollar on 29 January 2014.<\/p>\n

The latest drop comes on the back of a strong dollar, with further strain coming from a widening trade deficit in the country.<\/p>\n

Economist Mike Sch\u00fcssler previously told BusinessTech that the rand’s problems were likely continue as long as the country was buying more than it was selling.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur exports are under pressure as both commodity prices have fallen, and strike action has meant that we had even less than normal to sell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are growing at 1% while our deficit is 6%. We are seen as a fragile country that relies on huge inflows of money to fund this deficit,\u201d\u00a0Sch\u00fcssler said.<\/p>\n

\"Rand<\/a>

Rand vs Dollar 5 years<\/p><\/div>\n

According to data from the South African Revenue Service, South Africa’s trade deficit more than doubled to R16.3 billion in August from a revised R6.82 billion shortfall in July.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reuters reported that economists had expected an R8 billion gap, but the number is volatile and therefore hard to forecast.<\/p>\n

Exports in August fell 9.6% to R77.24 billion while imports were up 1.4% at R93.53 billion.<\/p>\n

The August data brings the cumulative deficit for the year to R70.74 billion, compared with a R51.88 billion gap over the same period in 2013.<\/p>\n

Economists are of the view that the rand could stay around its current levels for a while, settling at around R11.50 by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

However, a rating downgrade for South Africa \u2013 which may be likely \u2013 could see the rand buckle to R13.00 to the dollar, which coupled with a rates increase in the US, could see it pushed even further to R14 or worse.<\/p>\n

More on the Rand<\/h3>\n

Why the rand is so weak<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rand flirts with R11 to the dollar<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Why a weak rand sucks for SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rand vs the dollar in 2013<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South African rand hit R11.32 to the US dollar on Tuesday, hitting its lowest point in 5 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4068,26,3670],"class_list":["post-69837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-dollar","tag-headline","tag-rand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69837"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69857,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69837\/revisions\/69857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}