More than 65 per cent of small-and-medium enterprises (SME) owners in Macao say that their business has been blighted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The owners revealed their plight to the Collective Wisdom Policy Centre think-tank, which conducted a survey between 26 July and 3 August, collecting 1,061 valid responses.
According to the centre, the SMEs said that during the novel coronavirus pandemic a raft of problems had arisen, such as falling numbers of customers or orders, shortages of raw materials for their products and the growing pressure of paying rent.
The survey revealed that 40 per cent of the SMEs said they don’t expect Macao’s economy to return to its pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels next year. Eighty per cent agreed that the government’s e-consumption benefit plan had had a positive impact, however half of the respondents said they thought that its impact would be short-lived.
The centre is urging the government to launch policies that can benefit SMEs to better adapt to the digital age, The Macau Post Daily reported.
The centre also said that the government should consider how to strike a balance between Covid-19 pandemic prevention and control measures and the local economy and urged the government to continue promoting e-consumption and e-payment methods in order to help the economy recover faster.
