Study on the Impact of COVID-19 on Albanian Entrepreneurship

83% of manufacturing businesses claimed that they do not have sufficient liquidity to pay their obligations, as a result of the significant drop in income, according to a Survey that the Union of Manufacturers conducted with 100 of its members. About 80% of businesses claim that they can pay salaries to their employees for a maximum of two months.

Although they have liquidity problems and the inability to pay salaries, most of them (57%) claim that they do not plan to apply to benefit from the sovereign guarantee. Government assistance is not seen as functional, with 65% reporting that they are not satisfied with it.

This is the second survey conducted by the Union of Producers and compared to the first, which was conducted on April 2 and 3, it is found that there is a deterioration in the expectations of producers, which is related to the duration of the crisis and the uncertainties associated with him. 76% of the businesses said that if this situation continues, they can withstand a maximum of 2 months, from about 70% that was the answer of the respondents in the first survey.

90% of respondents consider the impact of the pandemic on their activity as negative/or very negative. The rest consider it as average and no one turns out to be a beneficiary of the crisis.

The three main problems facing manufacturing businesses are:

1. Lack of liquidity
2. Lack of customers
3. Decrease in production.

Lack of liquidity was reported as a problem by 84% of respondents.

The lack of customers was a concern for 65% of them and the drop in production affected 62% of respondents.

63% of respondents said that their income fell by more than 50% during the month of March. The expectation continues to remain even more pessimistic for April and May, where businesses expect the contraction of their receipts to deepen. Respectively, 72 and 73% of respondents expect their income to drop by more than 50% in the months of April and May.

Compared to the first survey, conducted at the beginning of April, expectations are more negative. At the start of April, 55% of businesses expected sales to halve or more compared to 72% three weeks later.