BR Diamonds The rand has slipped to levels last seen in early April.
The rand was heading towards breaching R17 on Friday morning, extending losses after the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) caught markets off guard by keeping interest rates unchanged.
The local currency had been hovering around the R16.40 mark over the past few weeks before slumping to R16.80 following Thursday's announcement before extending its losses overnight to around R16.96.
The Monetary Policy Committee voted 4-2 to keep the repo rate at 7%, leaving the prime lending rate at 10.5%, resulting in commentators questioning whether the policy was restrictive enough.
SARB Governor Lesetja Kganyago said while the inflation outlook had improved modestly since the Bank's May meeting, risks remained tilted to the upside. He also anticipated weak GDP growth over for the second quarter before the economic outlook started improving in the second half of the year.
