The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic will reduce the income of enterprises in the short term and may lead some enterprises to fail or to withdrawal from the market in the short term. This study used desensitized data on enterprise operations from multiple data sources, including taxation, invoices, payments and industry and commerce data to identify the survival state of the enterprises. To estimate the impact of COVID-19s outbreak's impact on small micro-enterprise survival, two sets of data are compared, data on the survival rate of small and micro enterprises in 2019, and data on the survival rate of small and micro-enterprises after the outbreak in 2020.
This study found that in 2019, in the absence of COVID-19, the survival rate of small and micro enterprises was 93.35%. However, in 2020, under the influence of COVID-19, the survival rate of small and micro enterprises dropped to 81.54%, a decrease in the survival rate by 11.81%. The impact of COVID-19 on the survival rate of small and micro businesses in different regions, industries, ages, and scales is also different. The survival rate of small and micro businesses in Northeast China, as well as in education, cultural, catering, and other industries, and on small and medium-sized businesses declined more than on other areas and enterprises. This study’s quantitative analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the survival of small and micro businesses, also aimed to inform targeted support policies for small and micro-businesses.