South Africa allows wine exports to resume as lockdown eases

South Africa will allow all agricultural exports including wine and wool to resume under new lockdown regulations.

The country will move to a national alert level 4 from Friday after five weeks of a strict lockdown, during which most industries were shut and the economy ground to a halt.

The prohibition on the local sale and distribution of alcohol products will continue, while an earlier proposal to lift the ban on the sale of tobacco products has been reversed, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in a televised briefing Wednesday. The government received more than 2,000 submissions about the plan to end the tobacco moratorium, and the decision to retain it is health-related, she said.

Travel between provinces will only be allowed in one direction for people to return to work, and the country’s borders will remain closed to the movement of people, with the exception of repatriations.