AS the Western Cape economy reboots, Premier Alan Winde has urged residents to support small businesses as a means of saving jobs and to help kick-start the economy.
Winde had this past week visited local businesses in Mitchells Plain to establish what challenges small businesses were facing as the province continues to explore more economic activities.
The province is facing more than 167 000 job losses as sectors report dire financial challenges, and will spend R4 million over the coming months to promote campaigns to drive interest in domestic tourism.
MEC for Economic Development David Maynier and investment agency Wesgro’s Tim Harris launched a campaign named “We are open” which will begin this Monday.
The campaign will target visitors from Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal and the Western Cape, many of whom may have had their international trips cancelled. With Tourism Month, September, kicking in, the province is looking to promote itself as a premium holiday destination.
Businesses that depend on tourism said they needed domestic travel to pick up to recover from the economic slump caused by the hard lockdown.
Meanwhile, the Bureau for Economic Research, in its weekly review, said the move to allow local leisure travel would benefit the industry, but it would take time to recover.
“Given the enormous hit to the income most businesses were faced with in the past five months, many have permanently closed their doors. The extent of the permanent damage will only become clear in months to come,” read the report.
Various business chambers and industries addressed the Legislature’s Adhoc Committee on Covid-19 to outline challenges facing different sectors this week.
The wine industry, through its body, VinPro, said over a period of just 14 weeks, the sector lost R7.2 billion in direct sales from the local and international market.
The country has seen two bans on the sale and transportation of alcohol during lockdown which had dire repercussions for the industry, which shed more 25 000 jobs.
“While we see a recovery in years to come, the implications are numerous – among them being that we will probably sit with surplus stock at the end of the year and won’t be able to harvest a section of the 2021 crop. The price of wine at the farm gate can drop by 50% unless we see interventions,” said VinPro chief executive Rico Basson.
“We also forecast that about 15% of this sector will close down; that is 80 wineries and 350 producers.”
Vinpro wine tourism manager Marisah Nieuwoudt said: “In 2019, the sector contributed R7.2bn to the South African GDP. Based on this we estimated by end of July we had lost R2.5bn in revenue, and if the international borders do not open for travel before 2021 that amount is likely to increase to R4.9bn."
The industry said they have approached both the national and provincial government to provide aid to help the sector ward off possible disasters in the coming months.
The Black Business Chamber’s Mntuwekhaya Cishe highlighted how many small businesses struggled to operate or even apply for funding due to their inability to access the internet.