PETALING JAYA: About 50,000 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) may go out of business if the Movement Control Order (MCO 3.0) is extended by another six weeks, the SME Association of Malaysia warned yesterday.
Its national vice-president Chin Chee Seong told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) that about 100,000 companies had ceased operations since the first MCO.
“The affected SMEs, especially in retail and food and beverages (F&B), are just hanging on at the edge of a cliff. About 40% have indicated that they will shut down their businesses should the lockdown continue for the next four weeks,” he was quoted as saying.
“From our recent survey, only 8.6% of the SMEs said business is as usual, but the remaining 91.4% indicated that they will suffer losses from 25% to 100%.”