EDITOR'S notebook
In fact, foreign printing operations geared to export work have leap-frogged many of the growing pains that U.S. printers encountered during their painful migration from an analog to digital workflow. No longer do they seek outdated and unproductive machinery on the used equipment market. PIA's Davis reports that Chinese printers imported 2,400 sheetfed presses and 540 web presses valued at more than $1.7 billion from 2001-2003. Asian markets, especially China, became the saving grace for many global equipment manufacturers during our recent recession as U.S. printers hunkered down and suspended their capital expenditure plans. An October 2004 PIA/GATF Print Market Survey revealed that nearly four-in-10 printers think their customers are seeking global sourcing for their printing needs. Almost one-in-three said they lost a job to a foreign competitor in the first nine months of 2004—with nearly half of those respondents indicating that the foreign competitor was a Chinese printing firm.
- People:
- Joe Webb
- Ronnie Davis
- Places:
- Canada
- China
- United States