Strong dollar and power outages cause the South African rand to decline.

On Monday, the U.S. dollar rose to a two-decade high as the beleaguered utility Eskom started its regular power outages. The South African rand also declined.

The rand was trading at 16.2350 against the dollar at 15:20 GMT, down 1.4 percent from its previous close.

After the Federal Reserve increased interest rates by 50 basis points last week, which had an impact on all currencies, the latest leg of the dollar's advance started.

High-yielding but risky assets like the rand lose their appeal to investors when the dollar strengthens.

Following tripped generation units at numerous coal plants, state-owned Eskom announced it will execute “Stage 2” planned power outages on Monday from 1700 local time to 2200 (1500 GMT to 2000 GMT), adding to the limitations brought on by a delay in putting units back into operation.

The outages significantly slow economic progress.

The March mining (ZAMNG=ECI) and manufacturing (ZAMAN=ECI) reports, which are coming on Thursday and will provide more details on the status of the economy in the first quarter, are among the domestic data releases this week.

The Top-40 index (.JTOPI) and the All-Share index (.JALSH) both saw declines at the closing of trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Government bonds also decreased in value; the instrument's 2030 maturity yield increased 11.5 basis points to 10.205 percent.