WPC8 - East meets South

Major themes that emerged yesterday, on the opening day of the conference, were about adding value to the age old business of print in an era of ubiquitous electronic media and communications.

Food for thought from the ever-affable Minister Ebrahim Rasool came in the form of a statement from Mahatma Gandhi, that the "the greatest crime is poverty" and that within the challenge to ensure that we adequately prepare all young people to compete in the global economy, the printed word can be one of the major allies.

Chris Sykes, President of the World Print and Communications Forum, welcomed an assortment of delegates from printing federations across the globe, as well as a host of various international suppliers whose raison d'etre for being here is to ensure the continued economic health of the print and related print media industries. In the light of the above, it is obviously also all in our interests as marketeers - publishers and citizens of planet earth - to ensure that our plethora of daily printed messages are effectively communicated.

So how are we going to do it? Stalwarts of the WPC events 4-7, the Chinese Government and Chinese Printing community, have demonstrated their commitment by sending a delegation of no less that 100 attendees! Their representative, Mr Yu Yongzhan, Vice Minister of Press and Publications for the People's Republic of China, shared with us some secrets of China's impressive business performance of recent years. The decision to join the WTO, has to date ensured that their export trade has been growing by 30-40% per annum. A resultant effect of increased trade is that their print industry is also growing at a rate of 15% with an output of $US260 billion or 2% of China's GDP. We will of course be able to witness all this rampant prosperity and technological advancement firsthand, come the Olympic Games and Shanghai World Expo in 2008.

Next up was Hiromichi Fujita San who is not only Chairman of the Board of the Toppan Printing Company Limited, but also the President of the Japanese Federation of Printing Industries.
Listening to a word-for-word interpretation of his talk via a nifty system of headphones, whereby an attendant barrage of interpreters allows you listen to any of the presentations in virtually any language, I was struck by the essential truth of of his opening remark - "the last 10 years has been earmarked by competition in a saturated market". He went on to point out that in order to add value under these circumstances, our creativity and marketing solutions need to be our core competence. As the pace of globalisation increases there are still many opportunities for paper-based industries to capitalise on digital advances. Having the techie side of things totally waxed, the Japanese have identified that the only business models of any value in the future will be ones that uphold social responsibility, education, collaboration and cost cutting (SEC). In this regard they have put their money where there mouths are, having opened a print museum in 2000 where a collection of 50,000 pieces are on display and where one can go and research the social and cultural contribution of the media - see the footage of the place and weep, beloved country.

Anyway, look forward to bringing you more ideas and insights from the World of Print Conference over the next two days.