Zambia’s currency, the Kwacha, weakened against the Dollar for the 18th consecutive day on Wednesday, solidifying its position as the worst performer in emerging markets since March.

This decline comes as a severe drought exacerbates constraints in copper production, a key sector for the country.

On Friday, the Kwacha extended its losses since 8 April to 8.4%, trading close to record lows of around 27 per Dollar. This marks the worst decline among the 32 most widely traded emerging market currencies and follows previous slumps in February and March, Bloomberg reports.

“The fundamentals are Kwacha negative. Zambia’s macro outlook is not very positive as copper production has been weak for a very long time. And the most recent droughts are a challenge for power generation, which is an additional constraint,” said Gergely Urmossy, an EM strategist at Societe Generale SA.

The Kwacha has lost around 5% of its value against the Dollar so far this year, and 17% over the past six months, as per LSEG data.

The previous low of 27.23 was registered on 6 February, Reuters news agency reports.

“There is too much demand for Dollars, mainly to meet imports of petroleum products and we have very scanty supply. It appears we are heading towards 30 per Dollar,” according to a trader at commercial bank in Zambia.

Zambia has been severely affected by an El Niño-induced drought, which has led to decreased agricultural production and increased the need for food imports. The shortage of water in the southern African nation, which heavily relies on hydropower for electricity generation, has also impacted mining output.

Moreover, “the Bank of Zambia’s reserves have not been increasing, which is also a concern and weighs on investor sentiment towards Zambia,” Urmossy added.