Survey indicates slump in sales, financial performance

By CLARISSA MOI
MOST business leaders who took part in a recent market survey indicated a slump in sales and financial performance this year, according to the PNG Business Council.
Executive director Douveri Henao said the second market survey was conducted by the council from May to Sept to measure the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on businesses.
“Businesses are largely designed to grow and make money and they do that by the sale of their products, commodities, services, goods and the strength of that entity is demonstrated in their sales figures,” he said.
Henao said a large part of their analysis looked into sales figures and the projections that the chief executive officers had.
From the survey, 79 per cent of the respondents indicated that they have not met their half-year target.
“And that’s a substantive amount.
“So you’re looking at micro-small enterprises all the way to large domestic and foreign enterprises.
“All have indicated that they will not meet their half-year results.
“So there is a major drop in sales and business performance.”
Henao said in the first quarter of this year, 75 per cent indicated that their second quarter performance would be below their projections in May.
“At least 20 per cent said their Q2 results were below forecast figures by more than 50 per cent.
“Across the board, more than half indicated that they had not met their projections during the half year.”
He said the tourism and hospitality sectors were the ones badly hit.
“The tourism and hospitality sectors continue to be among the hardest hit, with 41 per cent of respondents seeing their first half year results drop by more than 50 per cent compared to their projected results.”