In South Africa the Rand (ZAR) has rallied over 4% today as headlines on the appointment of a new Finance Minister also include some detail on how the new(old) finance chief will approach defending the credit rating of the country.
This AM Pravin Gordhan returned to the FM post as the 3rd FM in a week and President Zuma was forced to do some political maneuvering to save his own tenuous status. The headlines this AM so far signal the government will work to make debt payment and protecting their investment grade rating a priority.
For EM investors South Africa (EZA, quote) is clearly a test case for a handful of key commodity economies suffering under the weight of a commodity rout. South Africa is an example of what happens in Emerging Markets when the streets are paved in gold during the boom of a capital stampede in and how governments deal with not only the economic but political fallout that follows as fortunes turn.
The question is…
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