Despite the lifting of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila, majority of the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are still temporarily closed or are operating at decreased capacity — an indicator of the difficulties they are facing in getting back to their business operations, according to the recent survey conducted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on the impact of Covid-19 on MSMEs in the Philippines.
MSMEs comprise 99.5 percent of business establishments in the Philippines and are employing approximately 63 percent of the country’s workforce. In the past years, MSMEs were responsible for 40 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). During the second quarter of 2020 and almost four months since the community quarantine was put in place, the country’s GDP sank to 16.5 percent as the Philippines experienced recession due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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