With the price of shipping, and shipping containers specifically, set to increase even more through 2022, South African consumers should prepare for higher prices of goods, components, and materials. The government and Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition (DTIC) can help to soften at least some of that coming blow by lowering tariffs on imported goods.
The law of supply and demand means that the millions of interactions between consumer spending, consumer needs and wants, and businesses' and manufacturers' ability to meet those needs, can sometimes change in unforeseen ways. Prices of goods and services will shift up or down accordingly. When governments impose onerous business, entrepreneurial, and trade-related regulations, they add more costs onto goods and services – and consumers suffer the most. After the worldwide economic damage caused by COVID-19 and government-imposed lockdowns, it is now incumbent upon said governments to ease the many economic activity-stifling regulations that they have imposed over the last two decades.