SINGAPORE, Aug 9 — More than a month has passed since Singapore entered the second phase of its circuit breaker exit, but business has barely picked up at Wong Yuen Lik’s two retail stores at Capitol Singapore and Velocity@Novena Square.

For the month of June, he only raked in less than S$10,000 (RM30,524) in combined sales, compared with S$80,000 in the same period last year. His shops mainly sell winter and outdoor adventure apparel, which has seen plummeting demand as international travel grinds to a near halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite getting four months of mandated rental waiver and wage subsidies for his staff through the Job Support Scheme (JSS), Wong said he is still losing money and has had to cut the salaries of his nine employees in July. 

With several government support measures due to expire soon, Wong is bracing himself for more bleak times ahead. 

"If landlords start chasing for rent, we definitely cannot survive… I will see how much I bleed, if I need to shut, I have to shut,” said Wong, who is the director of his two shops Icebreaker and X-Boundaries. 

Adam Esoof Piperdy, chief executive officer and founder of events company Unearthed Productions, is in a similar predicament. 

With large-scale events cancelled since March to curb the coronavirus’ spread, the last physical event which he worked on was the Chingay Parade in February. 

Although he has pivoted his company’s business model to focus on holding virtual events, he said that it is a gamble as the industry is still finding its footing in this "uncharted territory”. 

While he and his team  —  whose size has been cut from 25 to 20 — are working hard to make the transition, Mr Piperdy said that he will only know whether the new model is sustainable in five to six months, as that is when most of the Government support measures will end.  

Apart from getting wage subsidies through the JSS, he has about two months of rent waived. He has also been able to defer repayment of his bank loan, and receive traineeship and job redesign grants from the government. 

"When all (the support measures stop) at the end of the year, that’s when s*** will hit the fan and that’s when we need to decide (whether it is worth continuing to run the business)... I think everybody is living on borrowed time right now,” he said. 

His staff, Jasmin Chen, 26, is fully aware of the possibility that she may be out of a job in the next few months if the firm’s transition proves unsuccessful. Meanwhile, having to learn new skills such as digital marketing is also a challenge for her, she said.  

Despite the uncertainty, Chen, who heads the projects team, has not started looking for another job as she enjoys being in the events industry, and believes that Piperdy’s foray into virtual events is worth a shot. 

Besides Wong and Piperdy, small and medium enterprise (SME) owners in other sectors whom TODAY spoke to also painted a similarly grim outlook for the future. 

Several said they have managed to hold on thus far due to various government help schemes, but may have to make the heart-wrenching decision to put up the shutters if business still remains sluggish after the support measures end. 

And that deadline is looming, with several of these lifelines set to expire some time in the next few months. The rental waiver, for example, ended in July and the JSS subsidies will cease this month, with companies receiving the payout in October.  

Keeping companies afloat through various support schemes has been the leitmotif of governments’ response to the coronavirus-induced economic distress globally, and Singapore is no exception.

However, such official assistance has also led experts around the world to caution against the danger of using taxpayers’ money to prop up struggling firms, especially "zombie companies” which were already heavily in debt and having problems staying afloat even before Covid-19 struck.

Since the coronavirus first surfaced in Singapore in late January, the government has pumped in nearly S$100 billion, via four Budgets, to support the trade-reliant economy which has been battered by plunging overseas demand, disruption to the supply chains, and restrictions on international travel. 

The measures to help businesses include: