South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) Governor Lesetja Kganyago heralded the fortitude of the rand and other emerging-market currencies amid the Iran war, and said this could reflect a wider souring on US assets.
“The broad resilience of emerging market currencies may well be due to weakening global trust in the US dollar and the need of investors to diversify portfolios,” he told an audience in the Eastern Cape on Monday evening.
“It is not that they are abandoning the dollar, but nowadays no one wants to be all-in on the dollar either.”
The rand, which had strengthened considerably before the conflict began on 28 February, has backed off to around the levels of late last year, even as oil-importing South Africa faces surging fuel prices.
“The rand exchange rate has been surprisingly resilient so far,” Kganyago said.
“It depreciated in March but then recovered to roughly pre-crisis levels. Many of
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