Kwacha hits K9, regional currencies drop

WEIGHED down by continued concerns over slow growth in China, the Kwacha hit a K9.00 level for selling in some Lusaka bureaux de changes as most currencies also dropped against the United States dollar, financial market players note.

On the regional front, only the South African rand and Ghanaian cedi marginally appreciated against the greenback, but the Nigerian naira, and Kenyan shilling as at the start of September.
Zanaco Bank predicates that the Kwacha is expected to remain on the backfoot as markets grapple with contagion concerns from Chinese markets and projected slower local economic growth and a wider fiscal deficit in 2015.

In its daily treasury newsletter issued yesterday, the bank indicates that on Monday, the Kwacha fell nearly 3.5 percent to an all-time low against the dollar.
“At market open, local market players quoted the local unit at K8.550/K8.570 to the dollar, unchanged from Friday’s close.
The local unit immediately showed weakness as it dropped to low of K8.900/K8.920 before retracing some of the earlier losses to close at K8.870/K8.890 on the bid and offer respectively. It posted a sharp 32 ngwee drop on the day,” the bank notes.

In midday survey conducted in some bureaux in Lusaka yesterday, showed that the local unit hit a K9.00 level for buying at Golden Coin which pegged the pair at K8.50 for buying and K9.00 and Bimm was at K8.85 and K9.09 respectively.

At Unifinance and Bilt bureaux which were both buying the greenback at K8.7, pegged the dollar at K9.04 and K9.06 respectively with C& A at K8.6 and K9.06.
However, South Africa’s rand which traded weaker against the dollar early on Monday at 13.277 slightly appreciated to 13.2759 while the Ghanaian cedi was at 3.8979 from Monday’s open of 3.9005, according to the usd.fxexchangerate.com website.
Nigerian naira was quoted at 199.0936 from 199.0863 and Kenyan shilling was up at 104.0895 from 103.86934.

ZAMBIADAILYMAIL