Trade and industry minister Ebrahim Patel has rejected suggestions to allow ‘unfettered’ online trading.
This would amount to ‘unfair competition’, he said at a briefing on Saturday.
‘If we open up any one category,’ he said, ‘let’s say e-commerce, unavoidably there’s enormous pressure to do the same for physical stores, for spaza shops, for informal traders, so there is fair competition.’
He said it was imperative to limit trade and economic activity to control the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
This comes as concerns mount about the economic damage the lockdown is inflicting, and questions about whether the distinction between essential and non-essential goods is meaningfully assisting the fight against the pandemic.
Online dealers such as takealot.com want to resume their operations, arguing that it would be safe to do so, and was an opportunity to push new forms of commerce suited to the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’.