Small businesses hard hit by Covid-19 crisis still suffering in Mallorca capital

MANY small businesses in the centre of Mallorca capital Palma which have been hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis have not reopened, according to the Pimeco business association.
Pimeco, which represents small and medium-sized businesses on the island, issued a statement on Tuesday in which it criticised Palma city council for what it maintained is a lack of help for these kinds of concerns.
The association said it “regrets” that four months on from when the country went under lockdown, “Palma council has not launched any of the initiatives it promised to reactivate small businesses.”
Pimeco went to say that it had carried out a study “on the ground”, noting that 83 establishments in Palma’s historic city centre which were open before the coronavirus crisis still have their doors firmly shut.
“In most cases these are businesses which have not been able to hold out or reopen after months of the state of alarm without being able to put up the shutter or cash up”, affirmed Pimeco president Toni Fuster.
He called on institutions for “initiatives which help small traders to carry on if we want to prevent the streets of Palma looking like a cemetery.”
Fuster argued that if “help takes much longer it will not arrive it time to save anyone.”
He argued that as well as direct campaigns to help traders, there should also be campaigns to “make the population aware about the importance of buying from small businesses if we want to maintain the idiosyncrasies of our land.”