Just weeks after hitting its best exchange rate against the dollar in 2023, the South African rand fell to a new 2023 low of 18.636 local currency units to the dollar on March 7. The listing of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is believed to be fueling the fall of the rand.
10 hour power outages
The exchange rate of the South African rand against the US dollar recently fell to a new 2023 low of 18.636 units per dollar on March 7, 2023, the last data has shown. Before the most recent drop, the rand soared to 16.721 to the dollar on January 12, 2023, the best performance for the currency since the beginning of the year.
However, since then, the rand has depreciated nearly 10%, making it one of the worst-performing African currencies in 2023. The rand’s plunge is reportedly blamed on South Africa’s never-ending electricity woes. , which have caused many homes and businesses to go bankrupt. more than 10 hours without power.
Since then, debilitating blackouts have prompted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to name the country’s first electricity minister. In addition to dealing with crippling power outages, President Ramaphosa said the new minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, is expected to help facilitate coordination of entities working to find a solution.
“The Minister is expected to facilitate the coordination of the many departments and entities involved in the crisis response, work with Eskom’s leadership to turn around the performance of existing power plants and speed up the acquisition of new generation capacity,” he said. President Ramaphosa. reportedly saying.
Meanwhile, some South African commentators have argued that South Africa’s recent addition to the FATF gray list could be one reason why the rand has performed poorly recently. against the major world currencies.
At the time of writing (4:10 pm EST, March 10), the rand to dollar exchange rate is just below 18.6 per dollar.
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