Business News: SMBED to Negative impact of Covid – 19 has hit the entire economy and the day-to-day living of the people and as a strategic and rapid response to this situation, Ministry of Small and Medium Business and Enterprise Development of Sri Lanka (SMBED) decided to design and execute a rapid study.
This is to undertake the level and nature of negative impact to Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises’ (MSME), to listen and understand their voice on expected immediate relief, intermediate rehabilitation and to formulate long-term growth and development projects.
Ministry of SMBED is among a few countries to undertake such a study in the world as an innovative and entrepreneurial Covid -19 response.
Due to Covid–19 and subsequent policy decisions to protect people most of the MSMEs are facing challenges and difficulties to continue their business operations from 13th March 2020.
“However, some of the small, medium, and large enterprises are either running or expanded their business operations with the integration of technology and building partnerships with online service providers. Therefore, it is essential to obtain an accurate understanding on MSME impact due to Covid-19 and its distribution among different economic sectors and geographies,” an official from SMEBD said
To this end, Ministry in collaboration with its relevant institutions will engage a Consultant to undertake remote and rapid national micro, small and medium enterprise surveys as a Covid19 response.
The main purpose of this national study is to understand the impact of Covid-19 on MSMEs and to estimate losses in order to formulate immediate relief and intermediate rehabilitation for MSMEs in Sri Lanka.
Objectives also include, commence the establishment of MSME database, estimate the total loss of MSME as a result of Covid–19, collect expectation of MSMEs from the government as relief and rehabilitation, and formulate MSME relief and rehabilitation package.
This will be the first MSME study in Sri Lanka which will be implemented using the virtual platform for designing, execution, monitoring, report generation, and report submission. In this regard, physical meetings will not be entertained and encouraged during the time of social distancing. Therefore, this will be the first MSME study in Sri Lanka at social distancing times with the use of virtual management techniques and remote data collection applications.
This will provide a new experience for MSMEs to get involved with the latest technological applications.
