South Africa's rand firmer

South Africa's rand on Monday climbed to its strongest against the dollar in more than three weeks, helped, like otheremerging currencies, by cautious optimism that talks aimed at averting a Greek debt default will succeed. Traders said domestic news headlines were taking a back seat for the moment, although investors would keep a close eye on just-started wage negotiations in the troubled gold mining sector as well as ongoing power shortages.
The rand climbed to a session high of 12.0840 to the greenback, its strongest since May 28, and was up 0.56 percent at 12.1110 by 1502 GMT compared with Friday's close. Government bonds followed suit with the yield for paper maturing in 2026, the market benchmark, closing 8 basis points lower at 8.3 percent.