The rand was threatening to break R6 to the dollar recently, with a greenback costing less than any time in the past eight months. Inflation has been falling, gold is at a 25-year high and the JSE continues to break records.
But while the economic news is generally good, don’t expect Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni to announce any interest rate cuts when the monetary policy committee meets on February 1 this year.
Actually, says Nedbank chief economist Dennis Dykes, there is room for the Reserve Bank to tweak rates. The bank would not want to over trim interest rates, but might tweak them by less than 1%, he says.
“The more they cut, the bigger the current-account deficit,” he says, which would result in a worsening balance of payments and make South Africa more dependent on capital flows.
South Africa’s current account deficit stands at 4,7% of the gross domestic product, a shortfall that is unsustainable in the long-run, says Simon Roberts, a professor at the Wits School of Economics and Business. The current account deficit is being funded by a surplus on the capital account.
“You can’t have a trade deficit forever,” says Roberts. “The question is how the adjustment takes place. The longer it takes for the adjustment to occur, the more likely the adjustment will be destabilising.”
Nazameera Moola at Merrill Lynch expects interest rates to remain on hold for the first half of this year.
“The Reserve Bank won’t want to cut now and hike further along,” says Moola, who believes recent market swings will prevent the bank from rushing to cut rates. The consumer price index, excluding interest rates on mortgage bonds (CPIX), was 3,7% in November last year, which marks a decrease from the more than 4% rate in July to October.
A survey, conducted by I-Net Bridge at the end of last year, predicted that inflation would be in the range of 3,7% to 4,3% for 2006 — within the 3% to 6% inflation target set by the Reserve Bank.
In the first week of 2006, the rand appreciated by more than 4% and broke the R6 to the dollar level at 5am on Thursday. By 10am on Thursday, the rand was 6,02 to the dollar.
It has surfed to new heights on the back of record-breaking commodity prices but, analysts say, international trends will determine whether the rand stays strong or gets dumped by crashing prices in the new year.
South African commodity exports depend on demand from fast-growing Asian economies, says Paul Jordaan, CEO of Mintek. Rapidly industrialising countries, such as India and China, are building their gold reserves and, because they are in the early stages of development use metals, such as steel, intensively.
Increased demand for metals is good news for South Africa. About 60% of our exports are commodity products of a mineral base. The increase will result in a “super-cycle” in the commodity boom, says Jordaan, because of the relatively large populations in Asian industrialising countries.
While Jordaan predicts a long-lasting commodity boom, Dykes warns that growth in China and India is export-focused. Economic conditions in the United States and demand for Asian products will, therefore, influence the continued strength of the rand.
In a global environment of cheap manufacturing, a stronger rand enables consumers to buy less costly imported products. But, greater consumption of imports contributes to the current-account deficit. It may also have deleterious consequences for the domestic industry.
South African manufactured goods face a “double whammy”, says Dykes, because technological improvements and competition from China have brought down the prices of manufactured goods worldwide, and growing imports on the back of a strong rand may undercut local manufactures. Also, exports earn fewer dollars as the rand strengthens.
“South Africa will keep riding the commodity boom but may slowly de-industrialise,” says Jordaan, who is concerned that increased returns to commodities will restructure the economy away from more labour- and skill-intensive industries.
Manufacturing firms will not necessarily shut down in the current exchange-rate climate, says Miriam Altman, the director of employment and economic research at the Human Sciences Research Council.
Altman says that a strong rand will make domestic inputs, such as labour costs, relatively more expensive in global comparative terms. While labour-intensive firms may substitute away from labour, capital-intensive firms may be less affected by the strong rand.
Another reason you get more buck for your bok is that the buck has been weakening. Dykes expects this trend to continue and predicts 2006 will be a weak year for the dollar. Increased interest rates in Europe and stable rates in the US tend to keep the dollar weak. The large current account deficit the US is running may also make investors wary of buying dollars. But the rand is also stronger against the euro than at any point in 2005, he says.
Another factor behind the rand’s appreciation is short-term capital flows and, economists say, a decline in global liquidity could enervate it.