The South African rand dropped today as Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan lowered the economic growth outlook, making nation’s assets less attractive to investors. The general market sentiment was also adverse to the currency.
South Africa’s growth projection for 2014 was lowered to 2.7 percent from the October estimate of 3 percent. It is expected that in three yearsâ time the government debt may increase to 48.3 percent of gross domestic product from 45.8 percent this year. Economists are worried that the negative outlook can lead to cuts of sovereign credit rating by rating agencies.
USD/ZAR was up from 10.7350 to 10.8432 as of 17:36 GMT today.
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