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THE feel
of paper or the colors leaping from a page cannot be
replaced by the cold touch of a computer monitor:
humanness will make the print media industry a perennial
business, says an executive from the German printing
industry.
“Humans
have the five senses that couldn’t be experienced by the
digital world,” Roger Starke told local industry leaders
here last week. “Books, for example, are regarded as
cultural assets in some countries.”
Starke
issued his statement as a representative of the German
Machinery and Plant Manufacturers’ Association to drum
up participation to the Düsseldorf Trade Fair on print
and publishing in May next year.
Starke
said that while the printing industry has gone from
craft-based to industrialized production “and, now,
digitalization to produce at higher speeds, the industry
today is as good as never before.”
He
acknowledged “strong competition from the electronic
media that produces another big challenge, which is
price pressures.”
Still,
he said, “the human experience brought about by the five
senses of seeing, touch, hearing, smell and speaking
denotes our future needs more than technology.”
Starke
said key segments of the print industry include
packaging of products that could elicit such senses at
the point of sale.
Examples
of these are products packaged in paper with special
inks that produce scents. Likewise, there are magazine
covers that, he said, have strong paper and adhesive
that a reader can craft into three-dimensional.
“The
future of the industry is how to extend our products
from just coming out of the factory but to the level of
the consumer. Expect more technology that focuses on
finishing and the mixing of several technologies.”
One
example here is the acquisition by specialty papers
manufacturer Glatfelter of Metallised Products Ltd., a
manufacturer of a variety of metallized paper products
for consumer and industrial applications.
Chief
executive George H. Glatfelter II was quoted as saying
in a statement the purchase is expected to create “a
major increase in European production scale, and
supports revenue and margin growth in these high-value
niche markets.”
Starke
said another future is in radio-frequency
identification, or RFID that shows the “increasing
integration” of electronic and print. Examples include
baggage or luggage tags, airline tickets and labels.
These
products, he noted, are keenly looked on in Europe to
address counterfeiting that has cost €300 million.
Another
basis of his optimistic view of the printing industry is
the group’s claim that leading brands worldwide are
putting more money into magazine advertisements.
He cited
a monthly German magazine that prints different covers
for every thousand copies of an edition.
Newspapers, on the other hand, are also going into such
segment with inserts, supplements and extended products
like book publishing, according to Starke.
“Instead
of posing a serious threat to print, so far electronic
media have in many cases given it wings to soar to new
heights. Even Internet businesses . . . harness the
advantages of print,” Starke said.
Documents distributed by drupa organizer Messe
Duesseldorf GMBH showed world paper and board production
rose 2 percent in 2005 to 367.025 million tons from
359.587 million tons in 2004. In 2005 packaging paper
and board production was highest at 180.539 million
tons, while graphic paper produced worldwide was at
151.165 million tons.
Mechanical pulp produced worldwide, however, went down
from 37.265 million tons in 2004 to 36.833 the following
year.
Chemical
pulp production also went down slightly from 130.428
million tons to 130.155 by 2005.
In the
two years, consumption of paper and board worldwide shot
up to 366.961 million tons in 2005 from 361.218 million
tons the previous year. |
