Nearly 10,000 applications for more than £200m of grant support have been made to the Economic Resilience Fund in Wales - with the highest number of bids from the construction sector.
Welsh Government has released a breakdown by sector of where the requests for emergency funding have come from since the £300m phase one part of the fund was opened in March.
It showed that there were more than 2,500 applications from building firms - mainly SMEs - for a total of nearly £40m.
While the sector was allowed to continue through the pandemic most sites closed due to concerns about being able to enforce social distancing.
Ifan Glyn, from the Federation of Master Builders Cymru, said: "Construction companies from across Wales would have breathed a huge sigh of relief with the launch of the Economic Resilience Fund.
"As an industry, construction made more use out of the first phase of funding than any other sector. This highlights the detrimental impact the Covid crisis has had on our sector but is also an insight into the fragility of an industry where risks are often high and margins are tight.
"The recovery must focus on rebuilding a more resilient construction sector."
Tourism has been among the hardest hit sectors and there have been around 500 applications from businesses in that industry for a total of nearly £19m - including seven large operators who have asked for £3.7m between them.
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Cafe and restaurants in the food and drink sector made over 670 applications for nearly £17m.
This comes as no surprise with this another sector widely forced to close in the lockdown.
There were a similar number of bids from retailers for more than £13m of funding as non-food shops were closed down.
There were only 250 application from the manufacturing sector but this had highest number in the large business category with 24 firms asking for a total of £9.5m.
Just over 450 transport companies applied for over £9m with similar figures for the financial and professional services sector.
Nearly 1,800 firms put themselves down as 'other' in the sector section - making applications for around £37m. These were from an array of sectors, said the Welsh Government.
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The Welsh Government has not yet published details on which firms have been successful in securing funds.
Phase two of the ERF is set to launch this month.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We are finalising the details on the next phase of the Economic Resilience Fund, and we expect to re-open the eligibility checker for new applications next week, allowing companies time to prepare their applications. Following that, we expect to open for full applications by the end of this month.”.