Ukrainian Railways will be on the Silk Road

Remote work will be legalized

They offer to declassify bank secrecy

Antiviral effect of furniture surfaces

At the machine tool fair

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

 1. Ukraine and Slovakia have signed a memorandum of cooperation defining the development and promotion of multimodal transport between Asia (primarily China) and the EU within the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt. Ukrainian Railways has all possible resources for such transport of goods. This was announced by the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Vladyslav Krykliy.

He also reaffirmed his readiness to intensify the work of the Ukrainian and Slovak parties on the development of logistics terminals in Chop, Mukachevo and Kosice, which could become a gateway between Asia and Europe, and proposed a joint search for financial resources to implement the project on the basis of the existing terminal in Chop”.

2. So far, neither remote nor home-based work in Ukraine is regulated by law. There are no such concepts in the Labor Code at all. Accordingly, there is no mutual responsibility of the employer and the employee for work outside the workplace. But the Verkhovna Rada decided to correct this and registered a bill on teleworking.

The new rules propose to conclude a separate employment contract for remote or homework. The standard form of such a document will have to be approved by the central executive body. Additional worries for employers will be job registration sheets and briefings on health and safety. 

The employment contract will be able to prescribe what means of domestic labour the employer provides employees.

3. The Verkhovna Rada registered Bill №4073, which proposes to supplement Article 62 of the Law “On Banks and Banking” with a new sub-clause, which would provide for the obligation of banks at the written request of the State Tax Service to disclose information containing bank secrecy on account transactions a specific legal entity, natural person – a business entity or natural person for a certain period of time, indicating the contractors and the purpose of payments. 

4. Experts in the furniture industry, referring to the research of one of the leading European laboratories “Catas”, believe that the creation of anti-virus surfaces opens up new opportunities for the furniture market. Studies show that the virus survives up to 72 hours on plastics and up to 48 hours on steel, less on cardboard and copper. These new findings are very relevant to the furniture industry and interior decoration. If we talk about modern furniture, then plastic predominates – in the form of laminates and other materials.

Antibacterial surfaces of the furniture are usually achieved by adding to finishing materials certain additives, for example, based on silver, which has a biocidal or inhibitory effect. 

The new properties of furniture, due to the minimal time of virus activity on their surfaces and the resistance of surfaces to frequent treatment with disinfectants, can be a new significant competitive advantage, especially for furniture suppliers for public institutions, schools, HoReCa and, above all, medical furniture. This also applies to manufacturers of materials and components – facades, countertops, films, fabrics.

5. It was decided that the traditional annual fair “HOMAG Treff” of this thing will take place. In both offline and online formats.

For its 60th anniversary, the German machine tool company Homag invites specialists to “spend 60 days with it , filled with interesting products, innovative solutions, modern technologies and innovations in the field of woodworking. ” 

Those wishing to join such an offer can register for face-to-face meetings of “HOMAG Live-Treffs” and personally get acquainted with the machines and technologies of the “Homag” brand. Another option is to participate in online presentations without leaving home.

All information about dates, venues, offline and online events during this year’s fair, the organizers posted on their website www.homag.com .