USA - Ikea announced that it is be closing its only U.S. manufacturing facility located in Danville, Virginia.

The plant has been operating since 2008 and mainly produces Kallax shelving products, and Besta living room storage units for the Ikea stores in North America. Ikea explained that the costs of raw material in the United States is too high to justify the plant. The factory will remain open until the end of the year.

With the plant’s closure 300 jobs will be lost. “This was an extremely difficult decision to receive. We made every effort to improve and maintain the competitiveness of this plant, but unfortunately the right cost conditions are not in place to continue production in Danville, Virginia, for the long-term,” said Bert Eades, the site manager at IKEA Industry Danville, in a statement. “We will do everything we can in the coming months to support our co-workers through this change as they look for new jobs and training opportunities.”

The Danville plant is part of Ikea Industry, the manufacturing operation of Inter Ikea Group and the largest producer of wooden furniture in the world. Ikea Industry is active within forestry, sawmills, wooden panels and furniture component production, product development, with its main focus on furniture production. Industry produces approximately 10-12% of the total Ikea range, with 43 production units in 9 countries: China, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, and the USA.