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Mandela calls crisis talks on S.African rand

JOHANNESBURG: South African President Nelson Mandela will meet union and business leaders on Sunday for hastily scheduled talks on the economy and the rand's freefall against the dollar, a spokesman said.

The rand has lost 18 percent of its value since February in a crisis of confidence that has been worsened by a strike called for Tuesday by the country's biggest labour federation, Cosatu.

Cosatu leader Sam Shilowa will be at the talks which will be held at Mandela's official residence in Pretoria, probably in the early afternoon, his spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said.

He could not confirm which business chiefs would attend.

Mandela was earlier meeting vice-president F.W. de Klerk, leader of the formerly whites-only National Party that shares power in his government of national unity, to discuss the country's final post-apartheid constitution.

The new law is due to be adopted by May 9 but some clauses are still in dispute amongst political parties, including the National Party's aim of enshrining the employer's right to lock out striking workers.

Cosatu called Tuesday's mass strike to demand the exclusion of any such clause. Mandela's African National Congress said it supported the strike which has dismayed business leaders who say it will damage foreign-investor confidence in South Africa.

Mandela said on Friday the strike will go ahead, though "not in a confrontational manner".

The rand's fall accelerated late last week but was halted after the Reserve Bank raised interest rates on Friday.

South Africa won strong backing on Saturday from the International Monetary Fund, whose managing director Michel Camdessus said he supported the government's gradualist approach to dismantling its remaining foreign exchange controls.

He also told a news conference in Johannesburg that post-apartheid South Africa, two years old to the day, was a major success story and he expected further economic growth this year.-Reuter