The South African rand weakened on Monday, as better-than-expected domestic manufacturing data was unable to alleviate trade concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country is currently working to secure a lower tariff rate on its exports to the United States. US imports from South Africa face a 30% duty, the highest rate among sub-Saharan African countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office announced last week that he had spoken with US President Donald Trump, and the two countries’ trade negotiating teams would engage in more detailed discussions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rand traded at 17.78 against the dollar, about 0.2% weaker than Friday’s close. South Africa’s manufacturing output rose by 1.9% year-on-year in June, following a revised increase of 0.7% in May. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Analysts polled by Reuters and Nedbank economists had anticipated production to rise by 1% and 0.8%, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, 12 August, the rand was trading at R17.74 to the dollar, R23.84 to the pound and R20.63 to the euro. Oil was trading slightly lower at $66.89 a barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are five other important things happening in and affecting South Africa today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Motsepe\u2019s<\/strong> R3.4 billion lawsuit:<\/strong>\u00a0Billionaire Patrice Motsepe\u2019s African Rainbow Capital (ARC) has approached the Johannesburg high court in response to a R3.4 billion lawsuit from the US-based Pula Group, for allegedly breaching a 2019 agreement regarding a mining project in Tanzania. [Business Day<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n New bank branches for Smart ID and passports:<\/strong>\u00a0Capitec will begin rolling out Smart ID and passport services at 10 branches in October, expanding to 100 by early 2026. Initially, these services will be available only in-branch, but the bank plans to add them to its app and offer home delivery in the future. [B<\/a>usinessTech<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africa a mafia state:<\/strong> Political analyst Professor Andre Duvenhage from North West University said that South Africa qualifies as a mafia state due to the country’s increasing issues with corruption, kidnappings, political killings, and extortion. [Daily Investor<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n A warning for electricity users in Johannesburg:<\/strong>\u00a0City Power warns that individuals who refuse meter audits or tamper with their meters will face fines of over R14,000 for single-phase connections and R14,000 to over R30,000 for three-phase connections, in addition to reconnection fees.<\/span> [The Citizen<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n E-tags of the rise:<\/strong>\u00a0Since Gauteng’s e-toll gantry system was shut down, e-tag adoption has risen noticeably. Sanral highlighted that this is because e-tags provide the easiest way for contactless payments and have made this feature available on all lanes at regular toll plazas. [TopAuto<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are five important things happening in South Africa on Tuesday, 12 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":817488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20398],"tags":[18993,853],"class_list":["post-834631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5-things","tag-5-important-things-happening-in-south-africa-today","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834631","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\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834631"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834635,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834631\/revisions\/834635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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