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ouch the Rand

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Not applicable
I didn't ask how many countries have pegged - I asked how many countries have pegged successfully. To peg a currency, you have to maintain adequate forex reserves. In small countries like Botswana, this is not so hard, especially when you are really basing your economy on dollar based products like diamonds and tourism. In large economies like SA - with multiple trading partners and large services industries, this is a huge ask. Hence my question - most countries (real economies) that have tried have failed miserably (Argentina, Thailand are the classic case studies). There is also the well documented inflationary impact of large currency reserves.
THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
Look at Nigeria and Zambia... there is no currency available. It's all very well to peg your currency but then how do you get the dollars to the potential converters so that they can use their Naira etc. Look at Nampak's results - she can't get her money out of Nigeria because she cannot get the dollars allocated to convert it. Remember the "Financial Rand"- that was a quasi pegged currency. What a disaster that was. These systems are also open to abuse.
Wizard
Super Contributor
I guess some of them do get it right....Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Qatar even China did few years back until it gets its own story right. Yes Argentina was a screw up.
THRESHOLD
Super Contributor
Socialist type environments. They had a peg to prevent strength since they had huge USD revenue streams primarily from oil/gas (China from cheap labour.) If anything - these countries had to many dollars. To the best of my knowledge all of them are struggling now - they simply can't afford to hold the pegs.