Pretoria - South Africa’s rand may depreciate further as the first US interest rate increase in almost a decade isn’t priced in by the currency markets, the Reserve Bank said.
“The rand has been very sensitive to changing probabilities of the Fed hiking rates, suggesting that the first increase is not yet fully priced in,” the central bank said in a report released on Monday in the capital, Pretoria. “It is also unclear whether the rand will stabilize after liftoff, as attention shifts to the pace and timing of additional rate adjustments.”
South Africa’s currency weakened to a record against the dollar on Monday after the Reserve Bank’s report was released. The rand has lost 20 percent against the dollar this year, adding to pressure on inflation from rising food and energy costs. Consumer inflation accelerated to 4.7 percent in October and the central bank forecasts it will exceed the 3 percent to 6 percent target band next year.
Further declines in South Africa’s export commodities could lead to more rand weakness, the central bank said. Its forecasts assume that commodity prices will drop further in 2016 and stabilise in 2017, in dollar terms, according to the report.
“It’s very difficult to speculate how far the rand can go,” Brian Kahn, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee and adviser to Governor Lesetja Kganyago, said on Monday. “The idea that it can go on forever simply doesn’t hold much water.”
The currency is the biggest risk to the inflation outlook, which remains relatively unfavorable, according to the central bank. Food-price growth could accelerate if the current drought intensifies, it said.
The rand weakened 0.6 percent to 14.4873 per dollar as of 8:05 p.m. in Johannesburg.
The MPC has raised the benchmark rate twice this year to 6.25 percent, even as it cut its growth forecast for the year to 1.4 percent, which will be the slowest pace since 2009. The economy narrowly avoided a second recession in six years in the third quarter. A quarter-point increase in the repurchase rate is projected to reduce the annual GDP growth rate by 0.1 percentage point, Kahn told reporters on November 19.
Monetary policy “is focusing on the risks of second-round effects from shocks,” the bank said in its report. “This permits a lower and slower trajectory for the policy rate than usual.”
The energy crisis is adding to pressure on growth and prices as the state-owned utility seeks higher tariffs to help it keep plants running. An application by Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. to recover 22.8 billion rand ($1.6 billion) of costs incurred in the 2014 financial year is not yet priced into the inflation forecast and could lead to more price increases, the central bank said on November 19.
“Electricity shortages will keep growth constrained for at least the next two years,” the bank said on Monday.
BLOOMBERG