Hits&Misses

Farmers and pharma doing well, but retail suffers a dismal year

PHARMACY group DisChem said it reaped the benefits of consumers’ increased interest in preventing disease, reporting “remarkable growth” in the sale of vitamins and chronic drugs in response to the pandemic over the past few months. In a trading update for the 22 weeks to February 2, it said group sales rose 12.1%.

DESPITE pandemic-induced economic uncertainty, SA’s agricultural sector is flourishing, with the country shipping $10.2bn (about R150bn) worth of produce in 2020, or 3% more than in the previous year. This is the secondhighest level after the record export value of $10.7bn in 2018, according to data issued by the Agricultural Business Chamber of SA.

THE Unemployment Insurance Fund said it was aiming to start processing applications for the extension of the wage protection scheme for workers affected by the lockdown in the first week of March.

RETAIL had its worst year on record in 2020 as consumers reeled from Covid-19 and its economic lockdowns. Retail sales fell 6.9% overall during 2020, the only year of contraction apart from 2009, the height of the global financial crisis, when sales contracted 3.2%, Stats SA data showed.

THE National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) entered into a consent order to add R10bn to electricity tariffs in the coming financial year, which will push power prices more than 15% higher. The Pretoria high court ordered Nersa to add R10bn to Eskom’s allowable revenue to be recovered from tariff customers in the 2021/2022 financial year.

SHOPRITE Holdings reported slower first-half sales growth after SA’s alcohol bans cut revenue at the liquor shops of the country’s biggest grocer. Sales at the local supermarkets business climbed 5.6% against 9.8% a year earlier.