IKEA closes Siret plant and lays off 400

Swedish furniture producer Swedwood, held by the most powerful furniture and interior decorations retailer in the world, IKEA, closed its only furniture factory on the Romanian market at the end of last month. “We’ve been having very serious problems for a while now due to the raw material costs. They went up 70% over the last three years and on August 22, Swedwood’s Board of Directors decided to close the factory. We are now in talks so as to make as little a social impact as possible,” Kelemen Balaci, general manager of the Swedwood factory in Siret, said. According to the latest available data, the price of wood, which goes into the products in this industry, has increased by up to 20% since the beginning of the year. The factory employs 522 people and 481 of them will be made redundant. The output of Siret was shipped to all the markets where IKEA is present. “We took a number of efficiency-boosting steps, but the impact of the cost increases was too great. It is no use achieving the sales volume if we are operating at a loss,” added the head of the Swedwood factory, who took over the position a year ago.