The Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) is conducting the second wave of the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) and Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) survey on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) among randomly selected business representatives across the Philippines from January 17 to February 11 2022.

The APO-ADBI study has 10 countries in Asia participating in this two-wave survey including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Viet Nam. It seeks to publish a report on the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs in APO member countries to help them plan for effective strategies and to assist them to recover from the pandemic. The results of the study will guide the ADB and policymakers in identifying approaches to assist SMEs experiencing economic downturns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The user-friendly survey instrument is accessible on a cloud-based platform and will only take 10-15 minutes to accomplish.

 

First wave survey results

The overall results of the first wave of the survey, which was conducted from July to August 2021, show that 93 percent of firms felt they need more support from the government. It specified the greater need for loan-and-tax-related support, lump-sum grants, subsidies for employees’ compensations, and better internet connectivity.

The study likewise discovered that over 75 percent of the SMEs faced cash flow difficulty during the pandemic. The shortage of raw materials has increasingly been a serious problem for about 60 percent of the MSMEs. This suggests that over 60 percent also struggled to fulfill contracts, which slightly increased since early 2020. Thirteen percent of firms in the aggregate level temporarily closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Further, the study found that the digitalization of SMEs helped several businesses across Asia cope with the pandemic. The share of firms with online sales and volumes remains virtually unchanged over time at the aggregate level while some countries see progress in SMEs’ digitalization and their use of social media for online marketing and selling. In the case of the Philippines and India, over 60 percent of firms generated some sales from online marketplaces where such are popular, while online sales in Mongolia and Malaysia remain at around 30 percent. About 50 percent of firms in Pakistan use social media or mobile direct message services. According to the study, cash remains as the most dominant payment method while online payment methods are rapidly becoming more prevalent.

The DAP will share more in-depth analysis of the study as well as recommendations to help SMEs recover from the impact of this pandemic after the completion of the second wave survey

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