I REFER to the report “CMCO eroding business cashflow, RAM survey says” (The Star, Dec 8; online at https://bit.ly/36X3LzP), which stated that the recovery paths of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro enterprises appear challenging in the absence of any brighter business prospects. To help these small businesses, it was suggested that they be given additional support to address their immediate challenges.
In my opinion as the owner of an SME, the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has affected SMEs harder than the first. This is because while the movement control order required all companies to stop operating, the conditional MCO allows us to operate but imposes many restrictions that prevent some, especially those involving face-to-face interactions with customers and require volume to thrive, from operating effectively.