The South African rand extended gains on Friday as the U.S. dollar fell, leaving the rand slightly stronger than it was at the start of a bumpy week.
The dollarThe rand had weakened to 19.3 to the dollar earlier this week as South Africa's state utility Eskom reinstated the country's worst-ever level of power cuts, resulting in up to 12 hours of outages a day for many households and businesses.
Power cuts have battered South Africa's economy this year. Current account data on Thursday showed the country'sThe rand has lost more than 12% against the greenback since January. "Falling U.S. Treasury yields have helped the ZAR recover some ground against the dollar through the second half of the week," said Danny Greeff of ETM Analytics, adding that a strong rand recovery is only likely to happen if the dollar weakens further.
"The local unit is sorely lacking anything in the way of resilience ... due to weak risk profile, which is mainly a function of chronic fiscal maladministration," he added.
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