Covid-19 and the South African wine industry
September 19, 2021
South Africa has faced multiple waves of COVID-19 infections since March 2020 with various levels of economic restrictions imposed to control the pandemic’s spread. Such actions included intermittent bans on alcoholic beverage sales, which have had a substantial impact on the wine sector. This purpose of this paper is to quantify this impact, using a partial equilibrium simulation model to separate the direct impact of sales restrictions from the indirect impact of collapsed GDP growth and consequently also consumer spending. In 2020 alone, it points to a reduction in domestic sales and in exports as a result of the pandemic and the efforts to control its spread.
The article is available here.
