It appears the currency debacle faced by Nigeria is not only limited to us as South Africa’s rand fell to 9-week lows against the dollar. The difference however is that, whilst Nigeria’s problem was more about falling Oil prices and a run our external reserves, South Africa is faced with electricity supply constraints met with strong U.S. payrolls data to push it through key support levels.
Their electricity company Eskom has just imposed the biggest power cut in 9 months under pressure from a grid that might just collapse and turn for the worse like Nigeria. Incidentally, Ghana which has also faced similar currency crisis have had to deal with serious power crisis.
South Africa’s currency was sold to 11.3770/dollar levels, giving up 1.6 percent to its weakest since Oct.3. It was the biggest loser in a basket of emerging market currencies trading against the dollar and tracked by Reuters.
More on Reuters
