IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) and the Shanghai National Accounting Institute (SNAI) partnered to conduct a survey of finance professionals in China in February 2020 about the challenges of facing the COVID-19 public health crisis. Respondents came from Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Beijing, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Shandong, Hubei, and other Chinese provinces. Twenty-eight percent of the respondents were from state-owned enterprises, 50% from private enterprises, 19% were funded by foreign investors, and 3% came from others.
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the top three challenges facing these enterprises were poor cash flow, labor shortages, and reduced effective demand. Small and microsized enterprises lacked effective crisis response capacity and risk management mechanisms, which led to poor operational results. Despite this, more than 50% of respondents said they were “cautiously optimistic” about the complete resumption of business operations by the end of the first half of 2020.