JOHANNESBURG, June 7 Reuters The South African rand strengthened below 19 to the U.S. dollar for the first time in three weeks on Wednesday, as a weakening greenback and an easing of rolling power cuts, known as loadshedding, boosted the currency.

The rand firmed more than 1 at 18.975 to 1, its strongest level since May 16, before retreating to 19.04 at 1233 GMT.

The dollar was last trading at 103.940, around 0.14 weaker, against a basket of global currencies.

Externally, the USD is weaker today… which will be providing a tailwind for the rand, Kieran Siney of research firm ETM Analytics, said.

News that the nation39;s power utility Eskom is suspending daytime loadshedding for the time being has provided a boost to investor sentiment.

He added that news reports that South Africa is looking to host the BRICS summit online or in China, to avoid implementing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, had boosted sentiment.

The rand lost 7 in May amid record deep power cuts and U.S. allegations that South Africa had supplied arms to Russia last year, pushing it as low as 19.9075 against the greenback last week and leading to fears it would breach 20.

The fact that the rand has pulled back more against the U.S. dollar than other EM39;s could be down to the fact that the rand was disproportionally undervalued against its emerging market peers and a bit of rebalancing was warranted, said Andre Botha, senior dealer at…