Cheers to that - CAPEWINE show rocks
AGRICULTURE, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza says her department has been listening to the wine industry and agricultural community about challenges that confront producers, including deteriorating infrastructure, and was working to resolve them.
Didiza was speaking at the CAPEWINE2022 show at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) yesterday.
CAPEWINE2022 is the largest wine trade event for the South African wine industry. This year's theme is ‘Sustainability 360', focusing on the three pillars of ‘People, Planet and Prosperity', each element playing an imperative role in the longevity and success of the industry.
“We have been listening to the wine industry and broader agricultural community about the challenges that confront producers daily. The issues of inefficiencies of infrastructure, which the wine industry felt acutely through delays in exports at the start of the year, are some of the problems we are working to resolve,” Didiza said.
“Our colleagues from Transnet have met with some of you and other sub-sectors to outline their agricultural strategy, which is a response to the challenges of the sector and simultaneously an indication of the importance of this sector,” she added.
The challenges of the deteriorating road infrastructure have been highlighted several times, and the department was engaging with Infrastructure South Africa and the Department of Transport, among others, to respond to this. “I know that the productivity growth that we have seen in South Africa's agriculture and, indeed, the wine industry is also supported by investment in research and development. This is an area that government aims to improve, not only for the wine industry but the broader agricultural sector,” Didiza added.
With trade at the core of South Africa's
wine industry's progress, Didiza said she was delighted to see a 21% increase in export revenues of this industry at the end of 2021 to almost a billion dollars. This improvement brought the export revenue back to the pre-covid levels.
The wine industry export markets were also well diversified during this period, with the UK remaining our leading market, followed by Germany, the US, The Netherlands, Namibia, and Canada, amongst others.
“Importantly, wine was the fourth largest agricultural export product in South Africa, making up 6% of the overall export revenue of US$12,4 billion. The products above wine in the export list are also produced to an extent in this province of the Western Cape. We have citrus and grapes here, which were the leading agricultural exports,” Didiza said. She highlighted that the expansion of export markets was also a priority for the department.
“Our approach has been to explore the favourable markets for horticulture, poultry, livestock, grains and wine and, after that, approach the desired market with a cluster of products to negotiate a pack.”
New markets include India, Saudi Arabia, China, South Korea, Bangladesh and Japan. Didiza noted that the wine industry export expansion strategy aligns with these markets.