South Africa’s rand, stocks and government bonds slumped on Monday after US President Donald Trump said he would\u00a0suspend aid\u00a0to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US funding to South Africa mainly involves supporting its HIV\/AIDS programme, but Trump’s comments caused investor unease about the potential for a broad review of diplomatic and economic ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casey Sprake, an investment analyst at Anchor Capital, said the autos and agriculture sectors were especially vulnerable as South Africa currently enjoys duty-free access to the US market under a Clinton-era trade initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rand is trading at R18.75 to the dollar, R23.28 to the pound and R19.34 to the euro. Oil is trading lower at $75.45 a barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are five other news stories making waves in South Africa today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Escaping ‘junk’ status<\/strong>: South Africa may receive an investment grade rating within the next three years after 15 years of being rated below investment grade. This is due to the National Treasury\u2019s fiscal discipline and key reforms in network industries such as electricity, logistics, and water, which are set to significantly improve South Africa\u2019s attractiveness as an investment destination. [Daily Investor<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strides made with visa backlog:<\/strong> The Department of Home Affairs reports that it has made significant strides to tackle clear a decade-old backlog of more than 300,000 visa applications. [EWN<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Government to support mining<\/strong>: Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe says the government is open to supporting South Africa\u2019s mining sector, including an electricity tariff linked to commodity prices to provide relief to mining companies. This follows a year during which the mining sector struggled due to low commodity prices and higher reliance on expensive road transport, leading to the sector paying nearly 50% less in taxes. [Times Live<\/a>, Daily Maverick<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n USA and South Africa: <\/strong>While President Donald Trump’s social media posts have not really impacted South African market prices or the price of the rand, which fell and recovered on Monday, this is bad news to South Africa. This is because the rand is already undervalued at about R2\/$, and the price-to-earnings ratio of shares on the JSE has significant room for recovery. [News24<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Western Cape tourism’s exponential growth:<\/strong> Cape Town saw a 10% increase in international flights from 2023. Air access is a key focus area for driving tourism growth in Cape Town, creating jobs and business benefits. Additionally, 88 ships are docking at Cape Town in the current season. [SABC<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are 5 important things happening in South Africa today (4 February 2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":797613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20398],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-810150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5-things","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810150","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\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810150"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810173,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810150\/revisions\/810173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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