The South African Rand extended losses against the US Dollar on Tuesday, as heightening concerns over China’s post-COVID recovery pressured the emerging market currency.
Yesterday the Rand retreated to a fresh 10-week low against the greenback, as it was undermined by more woes in China’s property market.
China is a key trading partner to South Africa.
Meanwhile, Rand traders will be paying attention to the second-quarter unemployment figures due out at 9:30 GMT.
South Africa’s unemployment rate probably remained steady at 32.9% in Q2, according to a consensus of analyst estimates.
In the first quarter, the number of unemployed persons in the country surged by 179,000 to 7.933 million, the employed persons rose by 258,000 to 16.192 million, while the labor force expanded by 437,000 to 24.125 million. Job growth was observed mostly in sectors such as finance and community & social services.
“The economy is simply not growing sufficiently to allow businesses to expand and increase employment,” ETM Analytics wrote in an investor note, cited by Reuters.
As of 7:44 GMT on Tuesday USD/ZAR was edging up 0.47% to trade at 19.1686. Earlier in the session, the exotic Forex pair went up as high as 19.2074. The latter has been the pair’s strongest level since June 7th (19.3032).