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Johannesburg - Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan will table
his medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) on Thursday as local currency
traders expect events from the statement to be extremely rand friendly.
It is expected that the MTBPS could provide plans on how to
grow the country’s economy and to chisel away at the current account deficit of
R12.2bn.
The rand is expected to be range bound in the days
leading into the MTBPS‚ as international and local issues could keep the rand
weaker.
“We are still expecting to be in the region of R8.55 against
the US dollar before the meeting. We are waiting to see what Gordhan has to say
with regards to the budget and the current account deficit‚” said Lynden
Reabow‚ an FX sales trader from PSG Prime.
One of the ways in which the government is expected to deal
with the deficit was by keeping the rand as weak as possible. As rand
weakness is good for economic growth via an implied easing of effective
monetary conditions.
“It places domestic producers in a better competitive
position relative to competitors in export markets and relative to foreign
suppliers into the domestic market‚” Bruce Donald‚ head of Standard Bank’s rand
strategy‚ said in a note last week.
The rand is currently bid at R8.62 against the dollar‚ 0.40%
stronger than its close of R8.66 on Friday.
Other traders believe other factors could also have an
impact on the currency.
RMB said it did not expect the rand to strengthen
significantly this week as global risk appetite continued to fall for emerging
market currencies due to expectations not being met at the European Union (EU)
Summit last week.
“Markets hoped to receive details on how the banking union
will be implemented and some indication of a path towards a fiscal union.
However‚ policy makers only provided an indication that an agreement on a
banking union should be achieved by year-end and that the agreement should be
implemented in 2013. A fiscal union will only be discussed at the next leaders’
summit‚” RMB said in a note.
Absa Capital said that eyes will also be directed towards
the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) later this week.
“Participants will be watching the FOMC as well as US retail sales and GDP data this week‚ because all three could provide some insight into the likely longevity of the Fed’s prevailing quantitative easing measures‚” the bank said.
