The managing director of the HDE trade association, Stefan Genth, sharply criticized the resolutions of the Corona summit.
Instead of loosening, the lockdown will be extended for many companies.
Because of the targeted expansion of the tests, the incidences are likely to rise rather than fall in the coming weeks, Genth told
Merkur.de
*.
Therefore, the industry will hardly achieve the necessary incidence value for an opening of 50 in the near future.
The possible intermediate step of Click & Meet, where customers are only allowed to shop by appointment, is “not a viable option”.
Mr Genth, the federal and state governments agreed on a gradual opening strategy on Wednesday after tough struggle. How do you rate the results?
For the retail sector, this will again not bring the big reopening in the near future.
For many retailers, this is a disaster.
The closed trading companies will lose another ten billion euros by the end of March.
The sole orientation to incidence values is not expedient.
Retail can safely open even at higher incidences.
Even the Robert Koch Institute * regards the risk of infection when shopping as low.
We will not soon reach the target value of an incidence of 50 across the board.
Especially not when you take into account that more tests should be carried out now.
This inevitably leads to the discovery of more infected people.
As a result, incidences will rise rather than fall.
So the new rule will cement most non-grocers' closings by the end of the month.
Don't you see something badly black there?
The situation for many dealers is dire.
That is why the disappointment is huge that politicians are not orienting their opening plans clearly enough to the risk of infection in the respective industries.
Because then she would have had to reopen the retail trade from March 8th.
The risk of infection in retail is low with the functioning hygiene concepts.
This is shown by 40 million customer contacts a day in the food trade.
There are no hotspots in this area.
Nobody can explain in a meaningful way why ten million daily customer contacts with the same hygiene concepts in the non-food trade must absolutely be avoided.
Where is the logic in that?
But there are certainly concessions. Florists and garden centers are now among the providers of daily needs and with incidence values over 50, at least Click & Meet should be possible in stationary retail. Does that help or is it more of a window dressing?
This is undoubtedly a positive decision for booksellers, garden centers and florists *.
But Click & Meet will not help the other retailers.
What can still be useful for a bridal shop or a jeweler is simply not economical and impractical for many fashion retailers.
As a longer bridge, this solution is not a viable option.
In the run-up to the summit, Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier collected the proposals from the most important business associations. Is there any of this in the resolutions?
Mr. Altmaier stood up for our interests and in particular spoke out against too rigid incidence values.
But as a result, the interests of business are definitely not reflected in the resolution to a sufficient extent.
For many retailers this is a “keep it up”.
After the conference, Chancellor Angela Merkel also promised further financial aid for companies. What should they look like and what have the latest bridging aids actually arrived at in the industry so far?
The amount of money that the Bundestag has made available is not the problem.
Specifically, the previous bridging aids are still too slow and also not sufficient to survive such a long lockdown.
In addition, there is no possibility for SME owners to consider an entrepreneur's wage or an imputed rent, for example.
For the larger companies, the EU cap of a maximum of twelve million euros means that the aid often does not really bring anything.
At these points, adjustments must be made quickly.
But even with a partial compensation of the fixed costs, the retail sector is reaching the limit of what the state can still save in view of the months-long closings.
Only responsible openings with hygiene concepts help here.
What do the resolutions mean for the industry: is the shop dying really going on now?
The dying of shops has been going on for a long time.
We will only see the effects when all shops are allowed to reopen and many shop doors no longer open.
* Merkur.de is part of IPPEN.MEDIA.