South Africa’s currency has taken a beating amid the latest bout of emerging market turmoil, but the country’s President Jacob Zuma told CNBC the rand’s volatility was all down to the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to cut back its stimulus program has sparked a sharp sell-off in emerging market currencies. The South African rand, which lost 18 percent last year, endured a fresh bout of pain in 2014, falling to a five-year low in January despite the South African central bank hiking rates by 50 basis points to 5.5 percent.
“It’s not because of our currency, it’s because of the dollar,” Jacob Zuma told CNBC Africa on Wednesday.
“The dollar, that is the key controlling currency in the world. Once the dollar has problems, many currencies are having problems…. the fact that we had the economy melting down is because of the dollar,” he added.
via CNBC
Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.