OREANDA-NEWS. For the first time in history, the South African rand exchange rate exceeded 18 rand per US dollar. On Thursday, with the start of trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for one dollar gave 18.28 rand.

“The Rand is falling due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus and fears of a global recession”, said TreasuryONE financial officer Wichard Chillers.

The rand depreciates on Thursday along with other emerging market currencies, including the Turkish lira and the Mexican peso. However, over the past four weeks, the rand has become the worst currency in the group of developing countries, having lost 21% of its value against the US dollar, and over the past year - 27.7%. "At the same time, in their aggregate, the currencies of developing countries depreciated over the year against the dollar by 25.45%", said Bianca Bots, executive director of Peregrine Treasury Solutions.

In such circumstances, the chances of South Africa turning to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance are significantly increasing, the News24 news service emphasizes.