At 4.20pm on Friday, the rand was bid at R8.6097 to the dollar from Thursday’s close of R8.6631, Wednesday’s close of R8.7328 and Monday’s worst level of R8.9945.
It was bid at R11.1725 to the euro from its previous close of R11.1998 and at R13.8437 against sterling from R13.8999 before.
The euro was bid at $1.2970 from Thursday’s close of $1.2925 and $1.2853 at Wednesday’s close.
"It has been a relatively quiet trading day today," said Tony van Dyk, currency dealer at the Iquad Group. "We expected the rand to strengthen a bit more than what it did, but we have seen a resistance level at R8.60.
"It will probably trade between R8.50 and R8.75 in the short term."
Absa Capital said if China’s demand for SA imports proved yet again to be uninspiring it would highlight South Africa’s deteriorating fundamentals such as the trade balance. "We thus remain of the opinion the rand remains vulnerable in the near term and our scenario has now shifted up to within an R8.60 to R9.00 range to the greenback
"This trading band could well persist until this month’s medium-term budget policy statement on the October 25 and until (the ANC’s) December elective conference is out of the way."
With regard to labour strike issues, it was reported on Friday that the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said intimidation prevented it from communicating with all its members ahead of further wage talks with the Chamber of Mines. "We are hoping to reach more of them during the course of the weekend‚" NUM’s Lesiba Seshoka was reported as saying.
Meanwhile, the Labour Court on Friday interdicted South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union members from embarking on secondary strike action in support of the primary one which underway in the road freight industry.
Johan Botes, director in the employment practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, said Judge Anton Steenkamp held in a detailed judgment that Transnet satisfied the requirements for an interim interdict.
A wage deal was signed at the road freight bargaining council offices in Johannesburg on Friday ending a three-week long truck drivers strike. The agreement was announced by the Road Freight Employers’ Association after wage talks resumed on Thursday evening.
Elsewhere, the NUM said it would march to Impala Platinum headquarters on Saturday to present a memorandum of grievances. The marchers would start gathering at 9am in Rosebank, Johannesburg.
Strikes at Petra diamond’s Koffiefontein and Finsch mines in the Northern Cape had now been resolved, the NUM said on Friday.
In another development about 3,800 clothing workers in Newcastle were on strike for a "living wage", Andre Kriel, the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union general secretary, said on Friday.
Furthermore, 3,000 municipal workers are to down tools on Monday and take to the streets in North West province over corruption. These protests would be followed by national action where all South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) members would bring municipal services across the country to a complete halt, Samwu said in a statement on Friday.
