NPES Explores Printing Industry in South China

Located on the banks of the Pearl River on the outskirts of Guangzhou, China, is the China Import & Export Fair Pazhou Complex, which is a large, ultra-modern facility that hosts the Printing South China trade show. NPES hosted a trade mission in conjunction with the show that took place from March 9-12 and coupled a visit to the show with plant visits in Guangzhou and Shanghai.

Nick Bruno, President of Harris and Bruno and Kevin McLaughlin, President of Flexo Concepts joined NPES China Representative, Ya-Ping Zhou and NPES VP Global Programs, Kip Smythe to better understand the opportunities in South China.

Located in Guangdong province, Printing South China had a heavy emphasis on package and label printing which mirrors the composition of the printing industry in the region. According to Li Jiong, the Vice-General Secretary of the Guangdong Printing and Replicating Industrial Association, “there are about 19,000 total printing companies in the province and about 10,000 of those printers are involved in packaging NPES Explores Opportunities in South China related print products.” The total production of those packaging printers was 140 million RMB ($20,487,305 US) of which about 40 million RMB ($5,853,515 US) was exported, mainly to other adjacent Asian countries. About 60% of the output is folding cartons, 10% corrugated, 10% flexible packaging, 10% labels and 10% miscellaneous packaging.

Clearly, packaging is the main focus of the printers in the region, however there are printing firms that concentrate on books and other printed products, and our visit to the Leo Paper Group Heshan Astro Printing Plant provided us with a glimpse of how fast China’s printing industry has grown. After a 2.5 hour ride to the outskirts of Guangzhou, we arrived at what we immediately recognized as a printing plant that was its own little city. High rise apartments to house the workers, a fire department, a medical facility, movie theatre, playgrounds, soccer fields, and basketball courts were all part of this enormous facility. The main 100 sheetfed offset presses (all at least 4-color and many perfecting too) in several buildings at this huge facility...5.7 million square feet huge, that is! The products printed by the 21,000 people who work there include:

• Books
• Games
• Bags
• Gift Items
• Packages

Founded in 1982, Leo Group leads the printing industry in China in protecting and preserving the environment. Leo has been complying with ISO 14001 certification requirements since 2001 when it first introduced “Replace, Reduce, Reuse, Renew and Recycle” policy. Leo works with suppliers to invest in more environmentally friendly sources of paper and voluntarily installed a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant at its Heshan plant. Leo continues to invest huge resources in making its production facilities a true GREEN printing plant.

Following our tour of the Leo facility we made our way back to Guangzhou and, of course, one of the main challenges in navigating around China is their infrastructure. Our ride back to Guangzhou took well over 4.5 hours due to the endless construction that is ongoing on their highways. But we all felt the long trip was well worth the aggravation on the highways to see this very impressive facility.

Shanghai Guanghua Machinery and Jielong Printing
On Wednesday, the group spent the morning in meetings with potential dealers and distributors in the region and then departed Guangzhou for Shanghai. Most people view the printing machinery manufactured in China to be inferior in quality to U.S., German and Japanese manufactured products. Our visit to the Shanghai Guanghua Printing Machinery plant changed that perception for us. Owned by Shanghai Electric, which also owns NPES member Goss Graphic Systems, Shanghai Guanghua manufactures its own line of sheetfed offset presses and in 2002 bought the Akiyama Bestech line of sheetfed presses. They claim to have manufactured over 325 of the 4- color models since that time.

As of 2010, they are now manufacturing all of the J-Print perfectors at this plant with all components and parts made in China. Their goal is to become the #1 manufacturer of sheetfed presses in China. The plant was extremely sophisticated with the latest in machine tool technology and testing equipment. According to Cao Rui Lin, the General Manager Assistant of SGPM, China imports about $1.2 billion of sheetfed presses each year, making a large potential market for their products. Clearly, NPES members making press accessories and components such as coaters, dampeners, etc., have an opportunity in this large and expanding market.

Next stop was to diversified printer, the Jielong Group, which is located about 1.5 hours outside of Shanghai. The Jielong Group manufactures virtually any printed product from newspapers to books, packaging to variable data printing, and pizza boxes to aseptic packaging. Founded in 1973 by Fie Junde with 1000 RMB (about $150) and an offset duplicator, Jielong Group today employs over 3,000 people at its 10 subsidiaries. During our tour, we saw sheet and web fed offset presses, flexo and corrugated presses and even variable data color digital presses.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a U.S. printer with as varied an arsenal of equipment. They employ the latest technology from CtP to digital color printing presses and would rival any large U.S. printing firm. In fact, they were awarded the Golden Prize in the 58th Premier Print Awards of the Printing Industries of America.

On our return trip to Shanghai, we drove past the site of the Shanghai World’s Fair which is currently underway. At this point, there was much construction left to be done, but the work was completed on time and the Fair opened on schedule. After a brief visit to the Bund River area to see the amazing light show on the skyline of the financial district of Shanghai the third day of the mission came to an end.

The last day of the mission involved a visit to the Shanghai Printing Association to learn about the state of the industry in this region of China. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are the three largest print markets in China and according to PRIMIR data, the total Chinese market was $62 billion in 2009 and is forecast to grow to $96 billion by 2014.

We left China with a strong belief that there are opportunities there for NPES members that could lead to significant sales of U.S. products. According to Kevin McLaughlin, “I have been to China many times in the past but NPES was able to put a trip together which expanded my knowledge and exposure to the Chinese printing industry beyond anything I had previously experienced. We have had an active China strategy for several years and because of the NPES trade mission we have updated this strategy. This trip will change how we do business in China. In addition, due to the experience in China we have decided to send one of our key people on the upcoming Brazilian trade mission.”