The rand remained weak against major currencies in late trade on Wednesday‚ as a further devaluation of the Chinese yuan and a hydrogen bomb test by North Korea made global markets even more jittery. The move by China put pressure on most emerging market currencies and also saw commodity currencies underperform. The rand is both an emerging and commodity currency. At 3.30pm the rand was at R15.8193 against the dollar from R15.6371 previously. Against the euro the rand was at R16.9951 from R16.8102. The local unit was at R23.1564 against the pound from R22.9480. The euro was at $1.0743 from a previous close of $1.0751. "The local currency continues its ongoing battle to recover from the events of last year‚" analysts at Nedbank Capital said. The dollar remains firm and the euro was set to weaken further on lower eurozone consumer inflation data‚ it said. The rand usually weakens when the dollar strengthens. The greenback is expected to strengthen even more with the release of US nonfarm payroll data on Friday. The data will provide further clues as to the pace of expected interest-rate hikes in the US this year. The US Federal Reserve is scheduled to release the minutes from its December meeting later on Wednesday.

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