Ikea closes half of its furniture stores in China

The Swedish furniture group Ikea temporarily closes around half of its department stores in China due to the novel corona virus. The Ikea parent company Ingka announced on Wednesday at the request of the German press agency that the company had made this decision after extensive consideration of the situation. The health and safety of customers and employees is always a top priority for Ikea. The employees concerned were asked to stay at home until further notice.

The Ingka Group operates 30 Ikea furniture stores in China, which employ almost 14,000 people. The Ikea in Wuhan, a city of over a million people, was closed just under a week ago, according to Swedish media reports. Since then, Ikea has banned business trips to and from China.

The new corona virus broke out in Wuhan a few weeks ago. In China, the number of patients with lung disease is skyrocketing, and there are already thousands of cases. Infections have also been confirmed in several other countries, including the EU countries Germany and France. There have been isolated cases of suspicion in Scandinavia so far, but none of them have been confirmed.

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