South African rand losses in the currency to look for higher-yield investments elsewhere and due to concerns over the impact of the economic slowdown in China, South Africa's largest export partner. By mid-January, economists were speculating that the Rand could expect to see further volatility for the rest of 2016. By 29 April, it reached its highest performance over the previous five months, exchanging at a rate of 14.16 to the United States dollar. Following the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union (EU), the Rand dropped in value over 8% against the United States dollar on 24 June 2016, the currency's
Currency governments intervene in the market to buy or sell their currency to balance supply and demand at a static exchange rate. In cases where a country has control of its own currency, that control is exercised either by a central bank or by a Ministry of Finance. The institution that has control of monetary policy is referred to as the monetary authority. Monetary authorities have varying degrees of autonomy from the governments that create them. A monetary authority is created and supported by its sponsoring government, so independence can be reduced by the legislative or executive authority that creates it.