Companies listed with the country’s stock exchanges fear a severe hit from prolonged shutdown of business operations amid the coronavirus outbreak in most of the countries including Bangladesh. Leaders of different business sectors observed that the impact of various restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic was unimaginable as the crisis might prevail for months even after withdrawal of the shutdown. It is inevitable that some companies would collapse and many employees might lose their jobs as the companies had to make tough decisions to survive even if the operations are reopened from April 26 as it may take months to run full-fledged operations considering the global economic situation. But this is the reality of the world that we live in. Companies are lowering their costs by laying off workers. They should also have a slush fund prepared in case of emergencies like this. When they made profits in their good times they must have prepared themselves for the bad times.
That way they would have a financial cushion to prepare themselves with. In the end only companies which have had good and efficient administration will survive in the long run. But preparing by itself can only do so much. The government can help certain sectors to tide over the bad times. The real estate sector which employs over half a million can get indirect help if the government lowers the duties and taxes needed to buy apartments. The RMG sector has already been given a boost. Other industries which employ millions must be looked into and given indirect assistance. So assistance must be targeted to those industries which are export oriented or which have contributed to the national exchequer or employ a significant percentage of our labour force.
Instead of simply giving subsidies we can do other things like ensuring that they get tax rebates or indirect help. There are many ways to sustain industries which are essential for our economy.
