KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 ― Official data released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) showed that 42.5 per cent of firms polled will take more than half a year to repair their businesses.

This is based on the DOSM’s Special Survey Effect of Covid-19 on Economy and Company/Business Firm (Round 1) released today, which surveyed 4,094 companies, compromising micro (43.4 per cent), small (40.4 per cent), medium (9.1 per cent) and large (7.2 per cent) firms.

The survey was conducted to study the effects of the movement control order (MCO) that was issued on March 18 by the federal government as an extensive measure to contain the spread of the coronavirus diseases (Covid-19).

The data also shows that  28.7 per cent of respondents need an estimated four to six months to fully recover while 1.9 per cent of respondents stated that their businesses will never recover and expected to close.

"The survey also showed that 68.9 per cent of respondents used their own savings as the main source of support for operating costs/working capital throughout the MCO, followed by 19.8 per cent through loans and 11.3 per cent by capital injection.

"Two main forms of support that a company/business firm needs are government financial aid/subsidies (83.1 per cent) and corporate tax deductions (67.0 per cent),” said DOSM in a statement today.

In the survey findings, 52.1 per cent of firms also agreed that the Prihatin stimulus package is able to alleviate their financial burden.

On March 27, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced an RM250 billion Prihatin Rakyat Stimulus Package (Prihatin), a direct fiscal injection to help ease the burden of the people and business owners during these difficult economic challenges.

Then on April 6, following feedback from business firms, Muhyiddin announced an additional RM 10 billion packages for small and medium enterprises (SME), on top of the RM250 billion already announced before.

This included increasing wage subsidies now to a total of RM13.8 billion, which will benefit 4.8 million workers across the country.