JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's rand hovered near the previous day's two-week lows against the dollar on Friday, with data from the revenue service pointing to continued pressure on the currency from a wide trade deficit.
The rand traded at 10.1725 to the greenback by 1614 GMT, slightly up from its last close at 10.1940. It was within striking distance of Thursday's trough of 10.2500, the weakest the local currency had been since Nov. 14.
South Africa's trade shortfall widened to 20.97 billion rand ($2 billion) in October from 18.94 billion rand in September, the South African Revenue Service said.
When incorporating previously excluded data on trade with South Africa's regional neighbours, the October gap remained high at 12.39 billion rand, confirming the economy is not generating enough export dollars to meet importer demand.
"Despite the steep sell-off in the rand in recent months, as well as a modest recovery in global economic growth, exports have failed to gain meaningful traction due to supply side issues," market analyst Jana le Roux of Tradition Analytics said in a note.
"Large trade deficits remain a feature and this is bound to keep the rand particularly vulnerable relative to its EMEA peers."
The rand has fallen more than 20 percent against the dollar this year the second-steepest fall after Indonesia's rupiah in a basket of 20 emerging market currencies monitored by Reuters.
A series of strikes which have hit mining and manufacturing output have added to vulnerabilities created by South Africa's yawning current account gap of around 6 percent of GDP.
Government bonds ended the week slightly higher on Friday, with the yield for the benchmark bond due in 2026 inversely dipping 1.5 basis points to 8.325 percent.
The shorter-dated 2015 bond was down 3 basis points at 6.18 percent.
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