US Dollar / South African Rand - USD/ZAR

When the South African Rand (ZAR) replaced the South African Pound in 1961 as the official currency of the new South African Republic (as it separated from the British Commonwealth), it was as a strong currency and it had for a long time a USD/ZAR cross inferior to 1, so one rand represented on US dollar until 1982.

The economical sanctions antiapartheid (which aim was to abolish the racial segregation political regime) South Africa supported from most of the Occidental countries, and then the economic uncertainty (inflation context, increase of the public debt, etc) that occurred after the abolishment of the Apartheid (1991) led to a massive depreciation of the rand against the American dollar for 20 years, until 2001.

So, the USD/ZAR cross oscillated between an exchange value USD/ZAR = 1 and the value USD/ZAR = 1, 30 until June 1984.

Then, we had USD/ZAR = 2 in February 1985, then USD/ZAR = 2,40 in August 1985 after the reaffirmation of the Apartheid by the South African leaders.

In 1992 (so after the abolishment of the Apartheid), we had the value USD/ZAR=3, then 3.60 in 1994.

In 1999, the value USD/ZAR = 6 was reached, then USD/ZAR = 7,81 in November 2000, the higher historical point was reached after the 9/11 attacks in the United States with USD/ZAR = 12,2250 on December 17th, 2001: the external value of the rand had never been as low.

A re-appreciation of the rand happened after in several times (USD/ZAR = 9,9600 in July 2002, but we have again the value 10,5305 in September 2002), a continuous decrease was observed on the Forex until December 2004, with the lowest of the USD/ZAR = 5,6400 reached on December 27th, 2004.

A new depreciation of the South African rand, which accelerated from 2006 (USD/ZAR = 6,5181 in November 2005; USD/ZAR= 7.1338 in January 2008), led the USD/ZAR, in the context of the subprime crisis which turned into a world stock-exchange crisis, to reach the value USD/ZAR=10 in November 2008.

If we had USD/ZAR=10.4387 in March 2009, a clear adjustment happened then in favor of the rand and the USD/ZAR cross had the exchange value 7.4485 at the beginning of November 2009.