President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that restrictions on sit-down restaurants, hotels, cinemas, theatres, casinos, conference centres, personal care services and non-contact sports including cricket, golf and tennis, are to be lifted.
The re-opening of hotels will not include home sharing and AirBnB services, he said.
This will allow more than 500 000 people to return to work after more than 80 days.
Ramaphosa said the date for when these businesses were to return had yet to be decided.
There was no good news for smokers as yet, nor any indication of when travel restrictions would be lifted.
He said personal care services - such as hair salons and beauty parlours - would be among those that would be allowed to open for business.
For contact sports such as soccer and rugby, athletes were free to resume training but not compete in events.
“In each instance, stringent requirements have been agreed will need to be put in place before any activity can reopen. These protocols are to be strictly adhered to. Announcements will be made in due course for the date these will be permitted,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa said the decisions had been taken with “due care” and “seriousness”.
“This is a global pandemic and most countries are facing exactly the same challenges. We must find ways to resolve the dilemmas we are facing,” he said.
He said 1674 people have died from the coronavirus to date, and of the total of 34 407 active cases, a third of these were recorded in the past week.
The Western Cape was home to 60% of the country’s total infections.
Globally, over 8.2 million infections and 444 563 deaths have been reported.
The president also noted that the country was currently in the grip of a second pandemic - that of gender-based violence against women and children.