One of IKEA’s biggest Romanian suppliers suspends operations due to COVID-19

Sortilemn, one of the leading local suppliers for the Swedish group IKEA, has suspended for one week the operations of its furniture factory located in Gherla, "following the recent developments related to the local coronavirus epidemic."

Another factory in the Sortilemn group, Becker Romania, has 11 employees diagnosed with COVID-19, Ziarul Financiar daily informed.

The announcement gives an idea about the kind of problems that the factories currently preparing the resume operations are going to face: disruptions in operations prompted by intermittent contamination of employees and supplementary disinfection costs.

This week, Sortilemn will disinfect its production spaces and install additional disinfection equipment at the factory entrance, according to the company.

Sortilemn's management will review the opportunity to resume the activity or to continue its suspension, depending on the developments in the coming days, according to the company's CEO Michael Brandhuber.

(Photo: Sortilemn Facebook Page)