The South African rand was trading around 15.8 against USD, the highest since May 4th, after the South African Reserve Bank raised interest rates by a further 50 bps to 4.75% and signaled gradual normalization of the monetary policy through to 2024. Higher precious metals prices also supported the currency. Policymakers revised higher inflation forecasts for 2022, 2023 and 2024, and lowered growth projections for 2022, mainly due to short-term domestic factors including devastating flooding in the key KwaZulu-Natal province and electricity supply constraints. South Africa’s inflation rate held steady at 5.9% in April, near the ceiling of the central bank’s target range of 3%-6%, driven by higher fuel and food prices linked to the war in Ukraine.
Historically, the South African Rand reached an all time high of 19.35 in April of 2020. South African Rand - data, forecasts, historical chart - was last updated on May of 2022.
The South African Rand is expected to trade at 16.37 by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate it to trade at 16.99 in 12 months time.