{"id":97629,"date":"2015-09-07T10:01:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T08:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=97629"},"modified":"2015-09-07T10:01:02","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T08:01:02","slug":"rand-hits-record-lows-against-the-british-pound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/97629\/rand-hits-record-lows-against-the-british-pound\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand hits record lows against the British pound"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South African Rand traded at its worst level against the pound sterling <\/span>on Monday, weakening to R21.2177 against the British currency amid negative undertones in China.<\/p>\n

The Asian superpower, South Africa’s largest trading partner, revised down its estimate of 2014 economic growth by 0.1% to 7.3%, raising concerns about its economic well being.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s official growth rate of 7.4% in 2014 was the slowest pace since 1990, according to the Financial Times.<\/p>\n

The SA currency has lost more than R10.00 against the Pound over the past five years, while its woes with the greenback continue amid economic internal concerns of its own.<\/p>\n

The South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6% per annum in July.<\/p>\n

And on Saturday, Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago said that the sharp fall in the rand “is not necessarily a bad thing” and that it need not be a worry, to the to the extent that it was part of a global foreign exchange rebalancing, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

Economist, Mike Schussler said that a slower Chinese economy has meant that commodity prices have come under pressure, with South Africa still a big commodity exporter.<\/p>\n

“I think the the business confidence, and the confidence in investors in South Africa is also waning quickly,” he told Jacaranda FM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The rand has also come under pressure against the US dollar in recent weeks, briefly weakening to its lowest level in a couple of trades, beyond R14.00, towards the end of last month.<\/p>\n

In trade on Monday, the rand was at R21.19 to the pound, and at a 52-week range of R17.0375 – R21.558.<\/p>\n

It traded at R13.94 against the dollar, closing in on its worst-ever level of R14.0682 achieved on 24 August 2015.<\/p>\n

More on the rand<\/h3>\n

The rand is tanking<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

R22.50 to the dollar by 2018?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

5 reasons for the weak rand \u2013 and what the SARB thinks about it<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South African Rand traded at its worst level against the pound sterling on Monday, weakening to R21.2177 against the British currency amid negative undertones in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":89390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,4109,3670],"class_list":["post-97629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-mike-schussler","tag-rand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97629","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=97629"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97651,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97629\/revisions\/97651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}