A MAJORITY (78%) of Malaysian businesses are either moderately or extremely concerned regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, found the ‘Impact of Covid-19 on Malaysian Businesses’ report.
The report is a joint initiative between Monash University Malaysia, Monash Malaysia Research and Development (MMR&D) and Global Asia in the 21st Century Research Platform.
With an aim to identify key challenges and concerns faced by Malaysian industries through the sentiments of business leaders, the report suggested that the concerns varied across different industries.
For the food and beverage (F&B), entertainment & tourism, as well as agriculture industries are most concerned with a decrease in consumer confidence.
In contrast, almost half of the firms (43%) within the business and financial services industry are concerned about a potential global recession.
The report shows that construction firms are also struggling to balance between worker well-being and productivity, with 35% worried about a reduction in productivity of their workforce.
At the same time, the manufacturing and F&B industry noted the vulnerability to supply chain shocks as one of their major worries and food-related industries struggle to cope with demand spikes and supply chain disruptions.
More than a quarter (26%) of F&B-related businesses being family-owned, they face the highest risk of going out of business.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- 65% of respondents are re-strategising their financial commitments given continued high levels of uncertainties.
- Managers and company owners appear to have a bleak outlook, with 73% of businesses expecting the company’s revenue to decrease this year.
- 60% of companies cited the immediate financial impact of the pandemic as their greatest concern followed by a potential global recession (42%), and 31% questioning their ability to stay afloat.
- Companies are exploring all avenues to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, with a near equal focus on changing business and operational strategy (66%), cost containment (65%), and changing company financing and expenditure plans (63%).
- 73% of respondents fear that Malaysia may be at a high risk of economic stagnation.
Despite the various headwinds from the pandemic and global economic uncertainty, 15% of respondents remain very optimistic and 30% optimistic about Malaysia’s economic outlook in the coming 12 months.
“The above results are due in part to the fact that Malaysia has been relatively successful in containing the pandemic, compared with many regional and developed economies,” MMR&D CEO Prof. Mahendhiran Nair said.
“Nevertheless, most businesses (32%) are only moderately optimistic, which suggests a cautiously optimistic outlook and close to 23% are pessimistic about the future economic outlook,” he added. – Sept 25, 2020
