Dear Customers,
This is now the 4th update letter from us to you regarding the situation in Latvia in connection with COVID–19. It is not with pleasure, but we think you have to be well informed on what is happening here.
This morning the number of infected people in Latvia was reported to be 376, over the last week roughly 30 people added every day. Although that is not a big number compared with Italy or Spain, but we are a small country and Riga is a city, which is most affected by the virus. So, we have to be very careful!
From this week we have changed the shift schedule so that people do not meet each other during shift changes. We have added posters asking people not to go into neighbouring departments.
We ask our employees to follow government’s rules: 2+2 which means 2 people and 2 m distance.
Our purchasing and finance departments would like to give the following information:
- Some paper mills are thinking about reduction of their capacities as the consumption of paper has gone down. We hope, that will not affect paper delivery times, but we will keep you informed.
- Just got information from Spain – their government has decided that book cover material Geltex production is not among the most important ones and the factory is closed down as of today till April 14. Luckilly they managed to manufacture and even upload our buffer stock of most often used Geltex grades.
- All the suppliers are worried about cash flow and are asking us to report on our order inflow and financial situation.
- We are doing the same with our customers – please do not be surprised or irritated, if our finance department will send you a reminder about delayed payment. We have to be sure that we receive payments in time to be able to pay in time to our suppliers.
- As we have quite a large material stock in-house, we have to pay earlier than we receive money from our customers. For that reason, to ensure continuous cash flow we have re-started using factoring services, which means there can be a demand from our bank’s insurance company to provide the latest financial information on any of our customers. Please, do not take it personally – these are consequences of the current situation, when all and everybody are nervous not only about health, but also about finances.
- We would also like to remind you that it is very important to think twice before placing an order or asking us to order paper, especially if it is a special size or special quality. If after placing an order you decide to cancel it and we have the paper already delivered, we will have to ask you to pay for it. Always remember that we depend on you the same way as you depend on us and it would not be good to make us pay for the material we cannot use.
- In less than two weeks we will have Easter holidays, please do not forget to inform us about working hours of your warehouses, so that we can adjust the production and transport as much as possible. If this information comes at the very last moment, we will not be able to change anything fast.
There is also some good news! Our new Heidelberg 8-colour XL-106 press is printing already and last week we started an installation of the next one!
And one more – we had really nice and sunny Saturday with + 15 degrees!
Please be strong and optimistic!
Livonia Print team
