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The share of economic agents that will see their activity reduced by more than 25 pct goes up from 33.3 pct in March 2020 to 45 pct in April 2020, and the shutdown rate increases from 9, 8 pct in March 2020 to 13.8 pct in April 2020, according to a research conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).
One of the aspects revealed by the ad-hoc statistical research carried out to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the volume of economic activity is the high level of uncertainty regarding the future of business during March - April 2020 and its rise in April as compared to March 2020. Thus, if in March 2020 a share of 21.2 pct of the economic operators could not estimate how their businesses will evolve, in April their share increased to 34.3 pct.
According to the INS, the increase is mainly explained on account of the reduction of the share of economic entities that hadn't foreseen a reduction of the economic activity from 12.9 pct in March 2020 to 6.4 pct in April 2020 and of the share of the economic agents that estimate an activity volume reduction of up to 25 pct from 14.3 pct in March 2020 to 7.7 pct in April 2020.
The ad-hoc statistical research was addressed to the managers of companies in the manufacturing, construction, retail and services industries regarding their perception regarding the evolution of the business activity they run. This was conducted between March 17-19. The sample consisting of 8,831 economic operators is representative at the level of the economic sectors and for the economy overall. The response rate was 71.3 pct.
