EMERGING MARKETS-Currencies deepen losses after Fed minutes

* S.African rand slides 1.8% as retail sales declines * Fed minutes show more rate hikes to come * Latam FX slide sharply, COP down 2% (Updates prices throughout, adds comments) By Susan Mathew Aug 17 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand deepened losses on Wednesday hit by falling retail sales, while Latin American currencies fell heavily as the dollar inched up after the U.S. Federal Reserve's last policy meeting minutes showed more interest rate hikes to come. The rand fell almost 2% after data showed South African retail sales fell 2.5% year on year in June after rising by 0.1% in May. The rand was last seen at 16.66 to the dollar, set for its steepest one-day decline in two weeks. "The hard activity data out of South Africa for June suggest that the economy contracted by around 1.0% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter, and we think that activity will remain weak in the coming quarters too," said Virag Forizs, Africa economist at Capital Economics. The dollar was up 0.1% as the Fed saw "little evidence" late last month that U.S. inflation pressures were easing, while not explicitly hinting at a particular pace of coming rate increases, beginning with the Sept. 20 to 21 meeting. "The Fed minutes stressed that the campaign to curtail inflation until the Fed believes inflation has fallen enough to reach levels commensurate with price stability," said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial in Charlottesville, Virginia. Brazil's real was down 0.6%. Data as measured by the IGP-10 price index showed inflation in Brazil fell 0.69% in August, compared to a 0.60% gain in July. Brazil's central bank has hiked interest rates aggressively to tame inflation, raising them to 13.75% from a record low of 2% in March 2021. Meanwhile, the two leading candidates in the October presidential elections, leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, began their campaigns on Tuesday. "Brazil's fiscal outlook remains fragile, as the South American country's gross debt is currently around 20 percentage points higher than peers in LatAm or EMs in the G20", said Mauricio Une, head of South America macro strategy at Rabobank. "Whoever wins the election will still have to deliver reforms so Brazil's debt can converge down towards the level of peers over the next years." The real has fallen every year until last year since Bolsonaro took office in 2018. During Lula's term between 2003-2010, the real gained every year except 2008, when markets were roiled by the global financial crisis. Mexico's peso slipped 0.3%, set for its worst session in two weeks, while Colombia's peso slumped 2.1%, extending Tuesday's 2.2% slide. Easing copper prices weighed on Chile's peso. Chile is the world's biggest producer of the red metal. Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1927 GMT: Stock indexes Latest Daily % change MSCI Emerging Markets 1015.30 0.11 MSCI LatAm 2238.49 -0.4 Brazil Bovespa 113681.91 0.15 Mexico IPC 48577.02 -0.46 Chile IPSA 5411.60 0.46 Argentina MerVal 125245.52 0.367 Colombia COLCAP 1320.34 -0.08 Currencies Latest Daily % change Brazil real 5.1682 -0.55 Mexico peso 19.9820 -0.43 Chile peso 897.7 -1.87 Colombia peso 4338.09 -2.06 Peru sol 3.8276 0.34 Argentina peso (interbank) 135.5300 -0.14 Argentina peso (parallel) 288 1.04 (Reporting by Susan Mathew and Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Potter and Josie Kao)