B
BOÖTES
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Do you chaps think your currency is strong? When I first visited South Africa (1987) it was something like 2.5Rand for $1. You'll be better off by comparing your 'strong' currency to the Aus $. With the US$ the tables are a bit 'distorted' right now. Can anyone get a comparison table/graph for the last 20years between the ZAR and the rival AUS$ ? That will say more about real strengt/economical development
The rand was kept artificially strong in the 1980's. In a few short years then between 1982 to 1985 it lost half it's value to 2 rand to the $. By 1994 it was R3.60 to the dollar. When Mandela gave way to Mbeki it slipped dramatically down to around 6. Since then other than the odd wobble the rand has traded very stable and is in fact now at the same level it was 10 years ago. The noise the brokers were telling us a decade back was that any day now, you could count on it, the rand would go to 20 to the $. I think that urban myth has played out now and South Africans are less prone to this type of panic trading of the rand.
I think given the areas South Africa has aimed at for growth it would actually benefit us better if the rand was slightly weaker. So I don't understand your post. What does the currency strength have to do with "strength" or "economical development" ? The English economy has been stagnant for years but the pound remains strong. China has been growing at a massive rate and the Yuan remains weak. Currency strength isn't a good indication of "strength" or "economic development" at all. Else Japan would be one of the poorer countries in the world with the yen at about 1000 to the $.
A better indication of this would be economic growth. The South African economy has grown on average at about 4-5% for the past 15 years despite the rand slightly slipping. I'm not so sure Australia could match that with it's growth of 3.6% over the same period. And then also consider how much of South African growth has been in the informal economy which doesn't even register.
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