He said that volumes on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange were quite low suggesting that investors were staying on the sidelines to see where inflation was headed.
The rand was 1.2pc weaker at 13.7475 per dollar, moving further from a 28-month high hit last week.
South Africa's trade surplus widened to 28.96 billion rand ($1.96 billion) in February from a revised surplus of 12.42 billion rand in January, data from the revenue service showed.