Coronavirus context: How the routine and activity of an Italian businessman changed

Mihaela Dumitrescu Posted on April 04, 2020• 4 min read

Carlo Beltrame, CEO of the Donalam from Romania, Calarasi, a steel company, is originally from Vicenza, a city in the Veneto region of northern Italy, an area with many cases of Covid-19 infestation. Carlo was last seen in Italy on February 7, when no case had appeared in the Peninsula yet.

Carlo was in Italy last time at the beginning of February. He returned to Romania on February 7, when no case had appeared in Italy yet. The first patients were registered one week later.

He says that his family is living in Vicenza, in northern Italy, one of the worst affected areas. There is no case in his close family, fortunately Vicenza is a city of about 110,000 inhabitants, so small compared to the big cities where the agglomeration is much larger. He haven't seen his family for 6 weeks, but he talks to them almost daily and he is aware of what's going on there.

Those from his circle of friends know that he have not been to Italy for a long time, and they know that he passed the incubation period and that he do not already have symptoms, he is not infected. But he think there is a fear of interaction in general, but in these conditions is seems to him absolutely normal. On the other hand, there are people who do not know him, who intuitively emphasize that he is Italian and they panic.

Now he stay very much at home, which does not bother him for the moment, because he dremed many times for a break. When he is not at home, he is in the car, on the way to the office. He still do this because the interaction is minimal and he need to prepare for the next period.

Donalam, the steel company he have in Romania, exports most of the production. He have orders from the last months that he needs to honor, so there should be no consequences in the short term. However, the metallurgical industry is a cyclical one and any economic downturn worldwide could affect the medium and long term orders.

270 people work in the complex from Romania, most of them residents of Romania. He activated the Emergency Cell set up at the company level and provided protective materials (gloves, masks, disinfectant gel), thermometers for measuring the body temperature of all the people who enter the site, performed the hypochlorite disinfection of the entire workspace. The trips to and from Romania were blocked.

Donalam is one of the leading players in the hot rolled steel bars industry in Europe and one of the few active steel combined comanies in Romania. The company was founded in 2006 by the Italian group Beltrame, one of the largest players at European level, and a year later, in 2007, it acquired from Tenaris, a rolling mill on the platform of the former steelmaker Siderca.