SOUTH AFRICA TOBACCO INDUSTRY FIGHTS TO RECOVER FROM COVID-19 PROMPTED SALES BAN

IT is maybe not a common occurrence for the tobacco industry to find itself on the right side of judicial rulings, but in December, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court ruled that a four-and-a-half month national ban on sales of tobacco products, justified to prevent the spread of Covid-19, had been unconstitutional. The ban, the only one implemented worldwide, led to a 20% spike in sales of illicit tobacco products, according to market researcher Euromonitor International, and a loss of an estimated South African Rand ZAR3.5 billion (EUR190 million/USD212 ...


Full access to this article can be arranged with permission from the client that first ordered it. Please contact us to request access. Entries are uploaded to our archive at least one year after being published by a client – free access is restricted to International News Services journalists for background research only. The article date indicates when copy was filed to a client, not when posted to this archive. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.