Wu Wenxiang
Chairman / Printing Technology Association of China(PTAC)
Vice President of Publishers Associaton of China

Introduction

China is the largest developing country. By the scale of printing industry, China can be counted as a large country for printing. But in consideration of print consumption per capita annually, the overall technical level and economic quality, it is not a strong country for printing. At the entrance of the new millennium, the Chinese printing industry still has a long way to go. This article specifies the development of printing industry of China and put forward some proposals in respect to mutual cooperation among the various Asian countries for discussion.

The Present State of the Chinese Printing Industry

1. The Development Course of the Chinese Printing Industry In Brief

As known to all, China has a long history with brilliant S & T achievements and splendid civilization. The inventions of compass, gunpowder, paper making and printing were all originated from the ancient Chinese cultural civilization of more than 5 thousand years. According to the historic literature, the engraved block printing was invented as early as in the 13th year of Shui Dynasty e.g. A.D.593. So there is a saying that ' Engraved block printing invented in Shui (Dynasty), popularized in Tang (Dynasty), Developed in Wudai (Dynasty) and Improved in Song (Dynasty)' . Then this technology of China was disseminated from east to west by the Ancient Silk Way through land and sea.

From the end of Ming Dynasty e.g. in middle of 17 century, China began lagging behind other countries in the field of S & T including printing. While the modern printing technology, started with the lead alloy types and wooden printing machine invented in the middle of 15 century by Gutenburg, was introduced into China as late as in the 19th century. Since the founding of P R China in 1949, especially after the reform and opening policy in 1980s, the government has paid high attention to S & T. development. With the construction development of socialistic material and spiritual civilization the printing industry has witnessed a great advancement both in production scale and technical level, and a comparative comprehensive industrial system is formed.

2. The Present Chinese Printing Industry

At present there are 82,189 printing houses. Among them 69,766 are engaged in copying, photoprinting and mimeography. The total number of employees is over 3 million. By classification of management, there are 8,152 publication printers (including 2,843 typesetting and plate-makings and binding houses, 20,409 package and 53,628 other miscellaneous printers.

Classified by ownership, 7,880 enterprises are of state-ownership, 30,219 are collective owned and 2,295 are with foreign capital ( including 1055 in joint-venture; 267 Chinese-Foreign cooperative, 473 in foreign venture and 500 others). 4,498 limited companies, 2,547 stock sharing companies with limited liabilities, 9,833 private-owned, 23,165 family-operated and 1,752 others. These enterprises produce 140 thousand titles of books, 8000 kinds of magazines, more than 2000 kinds of newspapers and plenty of packaging and decorating prints and all kinds of colorful printing items annually.

3. The State of the Art of Printing in China

During the period of 1983 - 1999 the Chinese printing industry has basically realized the aim of renovation ' laser typesetting, electronic color separation, offset printing for books and in-line auto-binding ' . We fade good bye to 'lead and fire' and gradually marched into the era of computerization.

According to the statistic of 1185 book printers in 1999, the total amount of characters typeset is 18.8 billion. Among them 15.3 billion of characters were completed by laser typesetter, which amounts to 81% of the total; In the provincial newspaper publishers text typesetting and imaging are all computerized. Plates remote transmissions are applied for distant sub-printers. In other sectors, CDTP for imaging and outputting text are popularized, but digital proofing is not yet. Computer to plate (CTP) has been introduced, but only by some main newspaper printing printers, to whom time effectiveness is of major importance. Offset printing becomes a dominant process in publication and package printing houses. By statistics, the total national production of publication printing in 1999 is 61.57 million reams (500sheet/ ream), including 50.29 million reams of books by offset printing, amounting 82% of the total. Newspapers are completely printed by offset printing.

In the segments of package printing, security-printing, advertisement-printing, computer business forms and job-printing, dramatic expansion of photogravure, flexography, screen printing and ink-jet printing have been witnessed. Letterpress printing still remains more or less in the inland.
Referring to the overall situation of printing equipment employed at present, the printing houses for publication and package are all equipped with sheet -fed offset machines, except all the newspaper printing houses use web offset machines. According to statistics of the main publication printing enterprises in 1999, there are 6702 sheet fed offset machines in operation, comprising 1134 machines of 4-color 1/2 sheet offset machines, 1274 of web offset machines (mainly single or double color). Commercial color rotary offset machines just imported since 2 years ago are about 30 only including foreign capital owned originally.

In respect of post-press equipment, the automatic newspaper conveying, stacking and packing system is popularized gradually in various provincial newspaper printing enterprises. The automatic paper-cover and hard-cover binding, perfect binding and saddle stitching lines are used commonly in large and medium sized book printing enterprises. There are 683 paper-cover binding and perfect binding lines, 81 hard-cover binding production lines and 1386 saddle stitching lines in China in1999. Although mechanic, semi-mechanic and hand operation still co-exists in some small binding houses, the proportion of mechanism is increasing. In large and medium sized package printing enterprises in main cities, automatic die-cutting and hot stamping machines are also used popularly.

The development and technical advancement of printing industry over the country is unbalanced in coastal area and in the interior. In respect of equipment, technical renovation, management, product quality and production efficiency, the newspaper printing, the main provincial publication printing, the large package printing, security-printing and business forms printing, a few of large state-owned enterprises and a part of joint-ventured and private-owned enterprises are in a favorable condition, especially the newspaper printing segment has always been the leader in technical renovation of the Chinese printing industry.

In a word, with the international advancement of printing technology, the printing industry of China has gained great progress. We have won an outstanding achievement in promoting the Chinese character laser typesetting system and remote transmission of newspaper plates. However in comparison to international advancements we have to catch up in many respects. The image reproduction process composed of pre-press, press and post-press, still remain in separately operating state. Automation and efficiency have to be upgraded. Digitalization, networks integrated system need to be developed. As to digital proofing, its deferred application has become an obstacle to developing computer to plate technology and integrated control over pre-press, press and post-press by digitalization and networks. We hold that to develop new and high-tech in printing industry we must have the following done:
a. To exploit and develop market; b. To create a basic environmental condition in favor to digitalization and networks for printing and seek an support of funds. c. To cultivate and introduce super qualified personnel d. To enhance the thoughts and concepts of decision makers in printing enterprises

Besides, China printing industry need to import high precision and super quality printing equipment and materials, but it is more important to initiate new creations on the base of importation, digestion, assimilation, so as to stimulate development of the national industry.

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4. Related Industries to Printing in China

At present there are about 400 printing equipment manufacturers by producing more than 100 thousand tons of printing equipment annually in China. On the statistics of 69 major printing equipment manufacturers in 1999, the annual production value is about US$360 million with over 40 thousand employees.

There are about 9000 paper mills in China. The total production output of paper and cardboard is 29 million tons, among them over 8 million tons are for printing (2M tons for publication printing).

There are about 400 ink makers in the country in 1999, employing 25 thousand staff and workers. The total output was 150 thousand tons. The large and medium-sized joint-ventures manufactured 70% products. At present the ink production output in China accounts for 5 percent of the total in the world, ranking the fourth.

By 1999 there are 21 main PS plate producers each with annual production capacity over 1 million sqms. The total PS plate production capacity of China is over 60 million sqms., but the actual production amount was only 30million sqms in 1999.

There are 11 main manufacturers of printing blankets in China. They produced 740 thousand sqms of blanket in 1999, including 230 thousand sqms of air-cushioned blanket.

There are 4 main manufacturers of photo- sensitive films for printing industry. They produced 7.5 million sqms in 1999, including 1,1 million sqms of films for laser scanners.

At present China has been already self-sufficient for some printing equipment, materials and paper of medium grade. However a large quantity of the pre-press, press and post-press machines and equipment of superior quality, top grade or special printing paper, high quality films, special inks and plates etc. are still to be imported from abroad annually. The value of various types of printing equipment and spare parts imported in 1999 increased by 25.9% than the previous year to US$675 million. Among them the imports of multi-color sheet offset machines reached US$210 million and imports of rotary web offset printing machines is US$132M, 84.6% and 41% increase respectively over that of 1998. 8 sets of multi-color commercial rotary presses each costing US$ 3 - 4 million were imported in 1999. A considerable quantity of equipment for pre-press and post-press were also imported. A total 6.5 million tons of paper and cardboard including 2.3 million tons of super quality paper and card boards, over million square meters of PS pales materials and films were also imported in 1999. In general the expanding demand of Chinese printing industry promotes the rapid development of printing equipment and materials industries of China.