Cape Town - Fitch Ratings downgraded South Africa's unsecured foreign-currency and local-currency bonds to non-investment grade - commonly known as junk status - on Friday.

It is the second rating agency to downgrade South Africa to junk status, meaning certain international investors will have to pull their investments from South Africa or else they will be in breach of their portfolio mandates. It takes two rating agencies to make a country officially junk status for these rules to kick in.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded South Africa to BB+ (junk status) on Monday evening, following President Jacob Zuma's Cabinet reshuffle last Thursday, which saw the removal of Pravin Gordhan as finance minister.