Assessing the pandemic impact

The Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) has embarked on its second-round survey to determine the effects Covid-19 has had on businesses in key economic sectors across the country.

The survey is aimed at measuring the prevalence and nature of adverse effects the pandemic has had on businesses operating in Namibia during stage two and three of the lockdowns from May to June this year.

NSA statistician general and chief executive officer (CEO), Alex Shimuafeni in a media statement said the second round of the survey started on 28 July and is expected to run until 07 August 2020.

Shimuafeni said this is done to have an indication of the effects Covid-19 had on selected sectors of the economy, noting that it will only cover formal businesses selected from NSA’s database.

A total of 502 businesses across 16 sectors of the economy will be used for the survey in which the NSA maintained that the list of businesses was selected based on their importance in terms of revenue and output contributions to the economy.

Findings

NSA’s previous survey results on how Covid-19 has affected businesses released on 26 May 2020 indicated that 50 percent of businesses in the country continued to trade partially, while 25.2 percent of the businesses indicated to have closed temporarily.

Furthermore, 21.2 percent of the businesses cited to be operating at full capacity during the period under review while 3.5 percent of the businesses indicated to have been permanently closed.

In the category of businesses that indicated to trade at full capacity, the results showed the manufacturing sector accounting for 5.8 percent of the total businesses.

On the other hand, 5.3 percent of businesses that were temporarily closed were recorded in the hospitality, sector such as hotels and restaurants, followed by the real estate industry with 3.5 percent. - Nampa