AI Article Synopsis
- - The paper analyzes the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China through two sets of phone interviews conducted during the pandemic.
- - At the peak of the lockdown in February 2020, 80% of SMEs were temporarily closed due to issues like labor shortages and reduced demand, although most had reopened by May 2020 after restrictions were eased.
- - Despite reopening, many SMEs, especially those in exports, struggled with insufficient demand, leading to a significant number of permanent business closures—19% of incorporated firms and 25% of self-employed businesses did not survive the crisis.
Article Abstract
This paper examines the short-term and mid-term impact of COVID-19 restrictions on SMEs, based on two waves of phone interviews with a previously surveyed large SME sample in China. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the resultant lockdowns took a heavy toll on SMEs. Afflicted by problems of logistics blocks, labor shortages, and drops in demand, 80% of SMEs were temporarily closed at the time of the first wave of interviews in February 2020. After reining in COVID-19, authorities largely eased lockdown restrictions in April. Consequently, most SMEs had reopened by the time of the second round of surveys in May. However, many firms, particularly export firms, were running at partial capacity, primarily due to inadequate demand. Moreover, around 19% of incorporated enterprises and 25% of self-employed businesses had permanently closed between the two waves of surveys.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9761881 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101607 | DOI Listing |
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