(Bloomberg) -- 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.
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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.
These are some of the other activities that will be allowed to resume:
- Vehicle sales may start gradually
- All agriculture, about half of manufacturing and about half of mining will be allowed to restart. Coal production for Eskom may scale up to full employment and open-cast mining can increase to 50%, and then full employment
- Restaurants may open for food delivery only
- E-commerce will expand incrementally, as will the range of products online retailers can offer
- Recycling services are permitted at 50% capacity and informal recyclers will be allowed to resume their work
- People will be allowed to exercise outside their homes, though only within the hours of 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and within 5 kilometers of their residence.
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