☝️ NBU of Ukraine is cutting record discount rate

☝️ “New money” from the government

☝️ And for industry gas will fall in price

☝️ Temporary cardboard furniture is just right now

☝️ Quarantine the pros and cons for IKEA

Everything that happened last week in Ukraine and the world and that is relevant for the furniture designer, read in our digest:

1. The Cabinet of Ministers praised the decision of the National Bank of Ukraine to reduce the discount rate – up to eight discount rate. Such actions of the regulator will allow supporting the economy in the conditions of coronary crisis.

For its part, the government plans to develop state programs for business lending. He is ready to provide “credit vacation” for entrepreneurs, but not for everyone, but only if 80 percent of jobs are saved.

2. The Cabinet of Ministers, which previously launched the state program of preferential lending “5-7-9”, in the last week of April, presents another program of preferential loans for business – “New Money”.

“This is an active business program that wants to retain jobs. It will also be a program of preferential loans (at the rate of up to three percent), delaying the repayment of the body of the loan and, possibly, credit breaks for interest, ”said Prime Minister D. Shmigal.

3. Naftogaz has published prices for natural gas, which will be valid from May 1 for industrial consumers and other economic entities. Prices for May decreased by 15% compared to April. The company offers gas at a price of 3.4 – 3.9 hryvnia per cubic meter. This is exclusive of VAT and the cost of transporting it through main and distribution pipelines.

4. Irish company Smurfit Kappa, a renowned European manufacturer of cardboard packaging, has created a product portfolio called Design for Help to help cope with a number of difficulties caused by a pandemic coronary virus infection.

The first product, the first launch of which took place at Smurfit Kappa in France, was corrugated cardboard partitions for workspaces, including offices, which are used to protect and provide the necessary distance between employees whose workplaces are located in close proximity to each other. Simplicity and efficiency have made them in demand in other venues and workplaces – for example, they are used in a special emergency room at a hospital complex in Navarre (Spain), where for the purpose of hygiene and limitation of the personal space of the partition is placed between patients’ beds.

In addition to partitions, the Design for Help portfolio includes a number of other solutions: a corrugated cardboard bed for temporary hospitals and isolation rooms; shelves, tables and other temporary furniture.

5. Swedish furniture giant IKEA expects to resume furniture sales by 90 percent by fall. Retailers in Europe are set to open next month.

According to Jesper Brodin, the head of the Dutch company Ingka Group (which owns the IKEA retail network), sales of IKEA dropped by nearly 60% during the coronavirus outbreak. At the same time, online retailer sales doubled year on year during this period.