Chamber of Commerce General Secretary pleads for gradual opening. Companies would need lead time anyway.
Despite the increasing number of new infections, Chamber of Commerce Secretary General Karlheinz Kopf is confident that the catering and hotel industry will open in mid-March. “We expect opening steps to take place on March 15,” said Kopf in the ORF magazine Hohes Haus . If that is not the case – “which I can not imagine at the moment” – then you have to look at the reasoning. “In the end, it is politics that decide,” stressed Kopf.
Start-up time necessary
In any case, there would only be a gradual opening, as the companies also needed a start-up period. In gastronomy, things would go faster than in the hotel industry, he cited as an example today. The government wants to announce on the month how the easing steps in the wake of the corona pandemic will continue. A new Sunday record of new infections was set today – 2,123 new cases in 24 hours. Since the beginning of the year, there had never been more than 2,000 cases on Sundays.
Home office regulation
The home office regulation defended head against criticism. The fact that only three euros per day are tax deductible for a maximum of a hundred days must be seen from the point of view that most employers would provide their employees with the necessary equipment for home office anyway. The fact that tax deductibility can only be achieved when working from home in your own four walls is a first step. Discussions about further solutions would take place among the social partners.
