BERLIN (Dow Jones) – The head of the supervisory board of Continental and Linde, Wolfgang Reitzle, calls for a change of strategy in combating the coronavirus crisis. With every additional week there would be irreparable damage to the economy, he said in an interview with the business magazine Capital. “Many smaller companies will die and will not be able to be revived,” said Reitzle. “But corporations are also under threat.”
The federal government has so far not given an end date for the exit restrictions, but has set itself the goal of using the measures to increase the number of infections from just under 5 to 10 days.
Reitzle considers the promise made by Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier that no job will be lost is an illusion. “This shutdown will lead to an immense loss of prosperity for a lot of people if it lasts longer than four or five weeks,” said Reitzle.
An end to the shutdown directly after Easter would probably be unrealistic: “But basically the start-up and production would have to start again from April 20 or April 27 at the latest. That would be hard enough, but many companies would still be able to do it.”
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DJG / aat / rio
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 30, 2020 10:03 ET (14:03 GMT)
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