Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives (MEDAC) is calling on all Malaysians to strictly adhere to the SOPs of Movement Control Order (MCO) 2.0 to drastically and effectively help flatten the curve of Covid-19 spread and subsequently allow economic activities to operate as usual.
While the Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar agreed that many are somewhat prepared for this round of lockdown, the hard truth of the matter is that most of these small businesses have not fully recovered from the blow the earlier movement restriction order.
“These micro and informal business owners mostly do not have the financial muscle to absorb the financial losses due to this lockdown. We are talking about people like your neighbourhood Mak Cik Goreng Pisang who does not have a steady monthly income. Her livelihood depends on her daily sales.
“The longer the duration of the lockdown would mean the more these small businesses will suffer. We have earlier estimated that there are close to two million of these microenterprises nationwide, where almost half comprise of informal businesses,” he said in a statement.
Referring to the Companies Commission of Malaysia SSM report on January until September 2020, he pointed out that although 41,349 businesses closed down for the period under review, surprisingly it has also showed 299,431 new businesses registration of which 86,295 are online businesses.
“We are now living in post COVID-19 era. Lots of things around us are changing and we have to accept and adapt to the new norm. In business, it is all about survival of the fittest.
“Entrepreneurs need to continuously equip themselves with new knowledge and skills not only for their businesses survival but also to take advantage of the many new opportunities.
“As such, we would like to call on entrepreneurs to take full advantage of the various assistance, incentives and programmes made available by MEDAC and its agencies to remain competitive in today’s challenging business environment,” he said.
-NIAGATIMES
