DEPARTMENT of Trade and Industry (DTI) Provincial Director Grace Aduca said they are going to conduct a survey on the effects of the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) to the local business sector.

Aduca said she believes that the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are the hardest hit by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic on income.

Aduca said that under MECQ, the movement of people is controlled because they can only get out of their residences based on the Quarantine Pass (QP) they are holding.

The City Government has so far issued two QPs to control the number of people going out of their residences.

Holders of QP “A” are allowed to get out of their residence every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while QP “B” holders are allowed every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

On Sunday, only frontliners and authorized persons outside residence (Apor) are allowed to go out.

The City Government was placed under MECQ effective May 8 and remains in effect until June 15 due to surge of Covid-19 cases.

Aduca noted that many of the affected individuals who lost their jobs have turned to online business by trying to maximize the use of technology.

Aduca said the imposition of MECQ has a big effect on MSMEs and that most of the people affected are trying to maximize the use of technology.

“They go on online selling. In food processing like Food Panda, Grab Food and others, they make use of the technology to recover but it’s no enough,” she said.

Meanwhile, she called on lending institutions to lessen the documentary requirements in providing loans to workers who have lost their jobs to help in their small businesses.

“Its difficult nowadays to secure documents from different offices due to the health pandemic,” she said. (SunStar Zamboanga)