The South African treasury will be guided in the liberalisation of remaining exchange controls by the final report of the Myburgh Commission on the decline of the rand, a senior official said on Monday.
”We will study the (Myburgh) report and may take some cues on things we should be doing faster and on whether there are things we should be doing better,” Treasury director general Maria Ramos said in evidence to a parliamentary committee on finance.
President Thabo Mbeki set up a commission earlier this year headed by advocate John Myburgh to find out why the rand fell so sharply and Ramos said on Monday the commission’s final report, due in June, could influence exchange control policy.
Ramos also reiterated that the government was committed to the gradual relaxation of exchange controls.
”There is not going to be a big bang approach to exchange control liberalisation going forward,” she said.
”I can say, though, that the position here is not one of going backwards. The movement is to eliminate (controls) and to eliminate in an ordered and well sequenced manner,” she said.
South Africa has phased out most of the exchange controls introduced under white apartheid rule to protect the local currency, but limits still apply to nationals and to South African companies seeking to take money out of the country.
The treasury came under renewed pressure to scrap the remaining controls last year, when the restrictions were cited by some analysts as a factor driving the decline of the rand, which fell 37% against the dollar in 2001. – Reuters