The Covid-19 Health Crisis:Its Impact on the Commodity Market in South Africa

Using data from the period February 2017 to June 2022, this empirical study analyzes the impact of the Covid-19 health crisis on the commodities market of South Africa. The analysis focuses on platinum, which is one major commodity that the country exports. Results show that the South African commodities market has been deeply impacted by the recent pandemic during the period defined as January 2020 to April 2020, moreover there is no statistical difference in the growth rate of platinum prices between the pre-Covid and the post-Covid periods. Nevertheless, the analysis cannot draw very accurate conclusions, as there is probably a bias with the omission of some appropriate explanatory variables such as futures prices, Chinese GDP, and the South African unemployment rate.