William Saurin’s parent company, Cofigeo, is the first group in the food industry in France to take this decision. This Monday it closed practically all of its production lines, for “more or less a month”, according to our information, to limit costs.
Before him, the glass manufacturer Duralex, the tableware specialist Arc international, the steel company Arcelor Mittal, in Fos-sur-Mer, or Aluminum Dunkerque have paused or reduced their production.
In the textile sector, at the beginning of the year, several companies will not return to work for another fifteen days. “They save weeks during the winter,” explains Olivier Ducatillion, president of the Union des Industries Textiles. These groups prefer to close temporarily rather than operate at a loss, as some restaurants have done recently.
9% of VSE-SMEs fear closure
At the moment, according to the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (Cpme), 9% of VSEs and SMEs, all sectors combined, fear having to stop due to the rise in oil and energy prices.
On the side of the largest industrialists in the country, around 400 have presented themselves with the Interministerial Committee for Industrial Restructuring (Ciri), which depends on the Ministry of Economy and supports companies in difficulty.
Of course, the situations of companies in the country differ according to their energy consumption, their health and their agendas. The agri-food industry, for example, which is in the middle of commercial negotiations, is especially fearful of the coming weeks. It is waiting to see if the price increases requested to the distribution pass or not.
Source: BFM TV
